Signing Savvy, Your Sign Language Resource

Hi Beth,

A hashtag is an accepted way to indicate a sign is lexicalized. When you see a word that starts with a hashtag in one of our ASL glosses, it means the sign is lexicalized in that sentence.

I’ve passed your suggestion to allow searching using the hashtag on to our team. Typically when a search is made, it returns a word with multiple sign variations and starts by displaying variation 1. A search using a word that starts with a hashtag would work a little differently since it is a specific sign that should be shown, which may not always be variation 1 of the word. An interesting feature for our team to look into. Thank you for the suggestion.

I also wanted to make sure you know about a few other features.

A cool feature that we have been working on rolling out is clickable words in our ASL glosses. If you look at the example sentences on FUN version 1, you will see this feature in action. Each of the words in the ASL gloss are links, you can tell because they are blue and when you rollover them an underline appears. So you can click on any of those words, like #FUN, and it will bring you directly to that sign (not only the word - many words have multiple variations and the link brings you directly to the sign variation being used in the accompanying video for the full ASL sentence).

When you look at the page that #FUN brings you to when you click on it in the sentence, you will notice it is a lexicalized sign. This is also noted in several places on the page (1) in the Sign Type it lists “Lexicalized Fingerspelled” and (2) in the Sign Notice it says, “This sign uses lexicalized fingerspelling. Lexicalized fingerspelling is when fingerspelling looks more like a sign than just the individual letters signed.”

Happy Signing!

Jillian @ Signing Savvy