Basic ASL Dictionary

About the Book

This Basic ASL Dictionary contains ASL signs for the eight hundred and fifty concepts most frequently used by native speakers of American English. English words for the signs, sometimes called Glosses, are the eight hundred and fifty words in the C. K. Ogden Basic English Word list. These words, extracted from everyday speech by Linguists, are said to be able to do the work of 20,000 English words, when every meaning of each word, or gloss, is considered. Beginning ASL study by learning these signs, most of which are citation signs, can enable a new student to become fluent quickly. Every sign in this dictionary has been examined by at least one member of the Deaf community, and certified to be current, meaningful, clear, and used in the Deaf community. The included signs convey one meaning of the Ogden words clearly, sometimes more than one meaning. Conveying the full power of 20,000 concepts in ASL requires the larger dictionary I’m preparing. I hope to publish the larger dictionary sometime before the year 2012.

About the Author

Frank Byrom, a character dancer, performing at the NYC Coliseum, shown on the left in a Polish costume for the dance, Ganz vodo. Shortly after this performance, he moved to Berkeley, California, the mecca for folkdancers. After years of study with teachers like Anatas Kolorovski (Slavic dance), and Karoli Zdenyi (Ballet), he began creating a literature of dance in Labanotation. This anthology of folkdances brings together in one volume several smaller anthologies publishes while he studies recreational folkdances. The Folkdance Notebook is a report of his field research, and describes some beautiful dances used as the nucleus of social gatherings in California. The scores here are both historical records of the dances, and useable as readers for students of dance or of Labanotation.