Standardized hand signals for numbers?

[Rick Murchison]

Put the ASL illustrations next to the cave illustrations of the same size and back away from the screen. See which one gets confusing first. Be honest.
I know that with my eyes, ASL 6,7,8 and 9 all start looking alike.
I'll stick with the cave numbers.
Rick

 

[Gombessa]

Show someone the cave system jumbled and unlabeled and I bet most can figure it out or correctly guess the right sequence quickly.

Do the same with ASL, and there's almost no way anyone would be able to get it right. 3/6 kinda throws you for a loop, and 6/9 and 7/8 are pretty arbitrary (even now I have a hard time remembering which is 6 or 9). I'm sure it works just fine once you learn it, but I don't see any inherent benefit in the system.

 

[Ayisha]

FWIW, I always teach my students to use the BACK of their hand towards the person they are signaling to. The five looks too much like "Stop!" otherwise and I ask that their fingers remain together.

Now that's interesting - and true. The "6" could look like a direction as well, but I guess in context they figure out that you're signalling #'s. How common is it to show the back of the hand for the first 5 numbers? And possibly the front of the hand for 6 - 9? (OK, that might be an unnecessary stretch).