"have" vs. "have"

I spent all of yesterday in the filming studio with what I currently refer to as "my translation team" (ie: Uganda). (On Monday, my colleagues return and will take over, allowing me to go back to my previous teammates.) One of the challenges of having so many different sign languages on campus is the influence of the local sign language on their translations. All the teams have learned Kenyan Sign Language, which we use for communication across the teams, despite the fact they each have their own sign language they are translating into.

As we filmed re-take after re-take, I kept seeing one of my translators using the Kenyan sign for "have" rather then the Ugandan one. We stopped the camera and they signed the whole passage again. I thought it was a simply a code-switching error, which are fairly common with the overlap of languages. But, when we finished for the day, the team leader told me it was actually a bigger issue than I had realized.

In Ugandan sign language, there are two signs for "have." One is what I had been seeing them use for the last three weeks, and the other resembles the Kenyan sign for "have." Both can be used, but the connotations of each are completely different! The Kenyan-looking "have" is only used by a person or in the context of being prideful, boastful, or arrogant. Considering the context of our Bible passage, only the first Ugandan sign for "have" would have been appropriate -- it is used generally, but also (purely in contrast to the second) conveys humility and graciousness. The closest equivalent explanation to spoken English could be the tone of voice you would use when speaking (which is normally conveyed through facial expression in sign languages, but in this instance, is actually also packaged in the choice of sign vocabulary).

Welcome to the nerdiness of the things that I find very interesting! ;-) And, obviously... worth writing about...