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Sign Language 101: A Beginner's Guide to American Sign Language

This video is excellent for every American Sign Language (ASL) student as well as teachers, parents, and professionals learning ASL to communicate clearly and naturally. You will learn how to sign the alphabet, numbers, colors, holidays, calendar, grammar, sentence structures, ASL Idioms and hundreds of vocabulary along with bonus features. DVD Chapter List: Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: ASL Alphabet Chapter 3: ASL Numbers Chapter 4: ASL Colors Chapter 5: Everyday Words Chapter 6: Basic Sentences Chapter 7: Grammar and Sentence Structures - 4 chapters Subchapter 1: Personal & Possessive Pronouns Subchapter 2: Wh-Word Questions Subchapter 3: Yes/No Questions Subchapter 4: Rhetorical Questions Chapter 8: Mother's Day Vocabulary Chapter 9: Graduation Day Vocabulary Chapter 10: Thanksgiving Day Vocabulary Chapter 11: New Year's Day Vocabulary Chapter 12: Bonus: Months of the Year Chapter 13: More Everyday Words Chapter 14: ASL Idioms & Phrases Chapter 15: Deaf Culture 101 - 8 Subchapters Subchapter 1: What is American Sign Language? Subchapter 2: Do's & Don'ts with the Deaf Community Subchapter 3: Quick Facts About Fingerspelling Subchapter 4: Which Hand do I Use to Fingerspell? Subchapter 5: Which Sign is Correct? Subchapter 6: Why are There No Voices? Subchapter 7: Why Capital "D" for Deaf? Subchapter 8: Where Can I Find an ASL Class? Chapter 16: Bonus! ASL Music Video: Goodbye, My Friend Chapter 17: Learn More! Chapter 18: About EverydayASL.com This video has also been developed for students and teachers from all schools, colleges, libraries and universities to use in all sorts of courses and programs promoting American Sign Language.

Newly minted wine producers and World of Wine Festival winners Carien and Brian Jordaan celebrated with supporters tonight in front of the Ashland vineyard that has helped to start their new life.

The Jordaans introduced their new label, Eliana, to an enthusiastic crowd. Brian chose the name, pronounced el-ee-AH-nah, he says because it “evokes the elegance of the wine” and it means “God has answered” in Hebrew and Romance languages.

Between sips of wine and bites of appetizers, Brian gave a tour of the vineyard that has grapes planted in the exact percentage of his Bordeaux blend: 56% Merlot, 28% Cabernet Franc and 16% Cabernet Sauvignon.

That’s no coincidence. Vineyard owner Stan Shulster planned it that way in 1998 when he planted his Bella Vista (“Beautiful Vista”) vineyard on a slope overlooking the Rogue Valley.

The Jordaans leased the vineyard from the Shulsters in 2008, gathered friends to harvest that October and hired Steve Anderson, the winemaker of Eola Hills Wine Cellars near Salem, to custom crush the grapes and make the wine. Today, they have 400 cases of 2008 Eliana Reserve ($30), which took home a silver medal in this summer’s World of Wine Festival.

More inspiring than their quick recognition is the Jordaan family’s journey to the Rogue Valley. Brian and Carien were born in different African countries but met in Atlanta, Georgia. They returned to Jordaan’s father’s farm in Zimbabwe to grow roses for the European market, but the government’s controversial land redistribution policy and aggressive squatters forced them off their land.

The rest of their story appears in this month’s issue of the Oregon Wine Press:

Roses to Red Wine
By Janet Eastman

Brian Jordaan was growing roses in Zimbabwe in 2004 when he was forced off his father’s land at gunpoint. He was told by the leader of an angry mob that he would be paid nothing for his 3,000 acres. He had no choice but to accept.

Jordaan, his wife Carien and their four children – who were 7, 6, 3 and 2 at the time – escaped with 12 quickly packed suitcases.

Their destination: Of all places, Medford, Oregon, where a friend of Carien’s was able to get her a job as an occupational nurse. Without a work permit, Brian became a stay-at-home dad. He dreamed of finding a career in which he could use his hands, tap his deep knowledge of farming and perhaps the couple’s appreciation of wine.

Fast forward to today: Brian Jordaan has just bottled 400 cases of 2008 Eliana, a Bordeaux blend that debuted at the World of Wine Festival, Southern Oregon’s August wine competition in Gold Hill.

The wine represents not only uncountable hours of the Jordaan family working together on leased land, but a new beginning.

“It’s a chance to start over,” said Jordaan, age 39. “And we feel incredibly lucky to be here.”

Many of Oregon’s noted wine pros are enjoying encore careers: Bill Hatcher was a financial planner for billion-dollar corporations before starting A to Z Wineworks. Earl Jones retired as a clinical dermatologist and introduced Spanish grapes to the Umpqua Valley through Abacela. Dave Palmer was an Air Force fighter pilot, and his wife, Pamela, had a degree in dental hygiene before buying Jacksonville Vineyard and creating the Fiasco label.

But for Jordaan, producing wine is an extension of his farming, his father’s sacrifices to buy land in his native Zimbabwe, and his father-in-law’s encouragement to start a new business and reassurance to Jordaan that on that one frightful day, he made the right call.

Back in 2000, people adopting Zimbabwe’s controversial land reform policies had seized much of the minority white-owned farms. Jordaan’s farm was divided, leaving him with just 30 acres to grow roses for the European market. One afternoon, four years later, he was confronted by a mob, telling him that if he didn’t leave, they would beat him and brutalize his wife and children.

“It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and we were told we had until 6 a.m. to pack up and leave,” he recalled. “We went into the house, closed the doors and hunkered down in a room. I lined up my firearms and had this incredible feeling that this was it: Either I fight for my family’s life and get out alive, or I don’t survive.”

Just then, the Black Boots riot squad broke down the gate and the front door of his house and asked, “Do you want to leave freely?” Jordaan answered, “Yes.” They told Jordaan which valuables to leave behind, and the family escaped.

Eliana is born

Recently, Jordaan decided to name his wine “Eliana” because the name means “God has answered” in several languages. The label on the back of his bottle states that Jordaan “manicures” the 2,300 vines producing his grapes. A visit to the three-acre vineyard in Ashland proves this.

The 12-year-old vines of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon benefit from steady sunshine, fine Carney clay and well-draining Brader-Debenger soils, and Jordaan’s hawk-eyed attention.

Retired attorney Stan Shulster and

Pongo pygmaeus abelii
Little Cinta (CHEEN tah) is turning out to be one spunky guy! His mom, Indah, had never had a baby before and wasn't quite certain what to do with her newborn. But Cinta, through sheer determination and a loud voice, made sure his needs were met. The growing boy currently weighs 50 pounds (22.5 kilograms).

The Sumatran Orangutan (Pongo abelii) is the rarer of the two species of orangutans. Living on and endemic to Sumatra island of Indonesia, it is smaller than the Bornean Orangutan. The Sumatran Orangutan grows to about 1.4 metres (4.6 ft) tall and 90 kilograms (200 lb) in males. Females are smaller, averaging 90 centimetres (3.0 ft) and 45 kilograms (99 lb).

Like the other great apes, orangutans are remarkably intelligent. Although tool use among chimpanzees was documented by Jane Goodall in the 1960s, it was not until the mid-1990s that one population of orangutans was found to use feeding tools regularly. A 2003 paper in the journal Science described the evidence for distinct orangutan cultures.

According to research psychologist Robert Deaner and his colleagues, orangutans are the world's most intelligent animal other than humans, with higher learning and problem solving ability than chimpanzees, which were previously considered to have greater abilities. A study of orangutans by Carel van Schaik, a Dutch primatologist at Duke University, found them capable of tasks well beyond chimpanzees’ abilities — such as using leaves to make rain hats and leakproof roofs over their sleeping nests. He also found that, in some food-rich areas, the creatures had developed a complex culture in which adults would teach youngsters how to make tools and find food.


A two year study of orangutan symbolic capability was conducted from 1973-1975 by Gary L. Shapiro with Aazk, a juvenile female orangutan at the Fresno City Zoo (now Chaffee Zoo) in Fresno, California. The study employed the techniques of David Premack who used plastic tokens to teach the chimpanzee, Sarah, linguistic skills. Shapiro continued to examine the linguistic and learning abilities of ex-captive orangutans in Tanjung Puting National Park, in Indonesian Borneo, between 1978 and 1980. During that time, Shapiro instructed ex-captive orangutans in the acquisition and use of signs following the techniques of R. Allen and Beatrix Gardner who taught the chimpanzee, Washoe, in the late-1960s. In the only signing study ever conducted in a great ape's natural environment, Shapiro home-reared Princess, a juvenile female who learned nearly 40 signs (according to the criteria of sign acquisition used by Francine Patterson with Koko, the gorilla) and trained Rinnie, a free-ranging adult female orangutan who learned nearly 30 signs over a two year period. For his dissertation study, Shapiro examined the factors influencing sign learning by four juvenile orangutans over a 15-month period.

The first orangutan language study program, directed by Dr. Francine Neago, was listed by Encyclopedia Britannica in 1988. The Orangutan language project at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C., uses a computer system originally developed at UCLA by Neago in conjunction with IBM.


Orangutan "laughing"Zoo Atlanta has a touch screen computer where their two Sumatran Orangutans play games. Scientists hope that the data they collect from this will help researchers learn about socializing patterns, such as whether they mimic others or learn behavior from trial and error, and hope the data can point to new conservation strategies.

A 2008 study of two orangutans at the Leipzig Zoo showed that orangutans are the first non-human species documented to use 'calculated reciprocity' which involves weighing the costs and benefits of gift exchanges and keeping track of these over time.

Although orangutans are generally passive, aggression toward other orangutans is very common; they are solitary animals and can be fiercely territorial. Immature males will try to mate with any female, and may succeed in forcibly copulating with her if she is also immature and not strong enough to fend him off. Mature females easily fend off their immature suitors, preferring to mate with a mature male.

Orangutans do not swim. At least one population at a conservation refuge on Kaja island in Borneo have been photographed wading in deep water.

Orangutans, along with Chimpanzees, gorillas, and other apes, have even shown laughter-like vocalizations in response to physical contact, such as wrestling, play chasing, or tickling.
San Diego Zoo-San Diego Ca.

Teaches American Sign Language to children with more than 300 essential signs, their English equivalents, and a picture ?translation.” Provides a multidimensional sign language vocabulary for preschool and elementary school children. The authors introduce common household items, animals, family, verbs, emotions, safety, and other concepts. Each of the vocabulary words features a picture, sign illustration, and the English word. The American Manual Alphabet, number signs, and a list of different American Sign Language handshapes are included for handy reference.