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I understand multiple spoken languages. If I hear someone speak (or see a writing in) English, I recognize that it's English not Latvian and interpret the sounds (or letters) as it's appropriate for the English language.

Is that just as easy in sign languages? If a signer understands multiple sign languages (for example, ASL and Russian SL), can they nearly instantly recognize which one is used by someone else?

Or could they misunderstand which language is used and think that some unknown signs are being shown until few sentences in?

And can some signers identify some other sign languages that they don't know themselves? In spoken languages it's possible - don't understand French or Italian, but I can somewhat recognize these languages by sounds and flow when I hear them. Can ASL signers similarly see Dutch SL or BSL and understand that it's being used without knowing that language themselves?

The reason for asking is that I am learning ASL instead of the local sign language due to accessibility of learning material. I wonder if signers will be able to identify it.

Džuris
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  • If I hear a Russian say [xaraʃo] I can "hear" it as [haɹəʃoʊ] but I have no idea what it means. If I hear Kabardian [ɬ'əq'ʷ], I have no idea at all what I just heard. Are you asking if signers can identify "the same sign" in another language, even though they have no idea what it means? – user6726 Dec 03 '19 at 03:03
  • If a signer understands multiple sign languages, can they nearly instantly recognize which one is used by someone else? 2) Can some signers identify some other sign languages that they don't know themselves?
    • – Džuris Dec 03 '19 at 03:06
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    @user6726 they're asking whether you can recognize which sign language the other person is using if you are fluent in more than one, and also whether you can recognize sign languages that you aren't fluent in if you're somewhat familiar with them (like I might recognize that Chinese is being spoken, despite not understanding a word). I assume the answer is "sure" to both, but I don't really know. – LjL Dec 03 '19 at 03:47
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    @jknappen-ReinstateMonica I am aware that languages are different. I just don't understand how hard or easy it is to identify a sign language. Does it take a phrase? Or would it be 3 full sentences until one understands you are not making a lot of errors but actually telling something entirely else in a different language? – Džuris Dec 03 '19 at 14:07
  • In order to identify some sign language, you need to know at least something about it, otherwise you just constate "They are signing in an unknown sign language". Language identification works on really small snippets for written languages, so when you know the clues it should work already with a sentence or two for sign languages as well. But I am not aware about papers on "Sign language identification" – Sir Cornflakes Dec 03 '19 at 14:15
  • P.S. I added the tag language-identification. Could you edit your first comment into the question to make it more clear what you are looking for? – Sir Cornflakes Dec 03 '19 at 14:18
  • What do you mean by "recognize"? Are you really aiming at language identification, or are you asking about mutual intelligibility? – Sir Cornflakes Dec 03 '19 at 14:21
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    @jknappen-ReinstateMonica I surely mean "identify", I didn't realize this could be mistaken as "understand". I had read all the other sign language questions on this site and knew that mutual intelligibility had already been discussed. Thank you for helping with tags and suggestions. I hope I rewrote my question a little bit better now. – Džuris Dec 03 '19 at 23:02