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Re:Before the Soul Dawn – Helen Keller on Her Life Before Se... by elevaet on Sunday May 26, 2024 @11:27AM (#40482886)
Good question. I always assumed they were unrelated to the official sign language but I don't actually know.

I wonder if there are many commonalities between the informal gestures used in Italy and Brazil.

Re:Before the Soul Dawn – Helen Keller on Her Life Before Se... by riffraff on Sunday May 26, 2024 @02:38PM (#40484358)
Many gestures are shared across cultures even without an obvious shared history (e.g. some simulation of an erect penis will mean "f*ck you", which you can do by raising a finger or by raising your forearm) so I bet there are some :)

One gesture I know of which existed in Brazil and Italy is the "fig" sign[0]. AFAICT nobody uses it anymore in Italy, but it goes back to the Etruscans!

Some years ago I came across a nice book (pdf) by some academic cataloguing a bunch of gestures across cultures, but I am failing to find it again ATM :(

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fig_sign

Re:Before the Soul Dawn – Helen Keller on Her Life Before Se... by elevaet on Sunday May 26, 2024 @04:00PM (#40484890)
I definitely remember seeing wood carvings of that fig sign. I never really knew what it meant and assumed it was an afro-brazilian thing, but sounds like it has european roots, interesting.