Is there a way to sign the scientific names of plant and animals in sign language?

Question

Such as tomato, the scientific term is Cyphomandra betacea. Is there a way to sign this or other scientific terms?

Answer 1

Short answer: No, there are no official signs for scientific names.

Long answer: ASL is very simplified. If you're communicating with a Deaf person, you should just sign "tomato." On the other hand--if you were interpreting for a High School or College class and the Deaf student needed to know that Cyphomandra Betacea was the scientific name for tomato, you would need to fingerspell it. Although ASL has many vocabulary words to describe things, there are still even simple things that are fingerspelled. IE: Most of the Deaf people I know have told me that there are no official signs for rice, papaya, mango, and many other things. You just fingerspell them. IE: RICE--look it up in the ASL dictionary and see what I mean: http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/asl...

This would ESPECIALLY be true for complicated English words. Chances are--no there is not a sign for them. If there is a sign for a word you want to communicate, make sure you look it up. Or, you may prefer to describe the object you're talking about. IE: for rice, I would sign "you know, food with beans, small, white?" If that doesn't work for the Deaf person in question, stick with fingerspelling, and you should be fine.  

Answer 2

To my knowledge, ASL is such a simplified language that they only worry about ideas of things. There would only be one word for "tomato." They wouldn't distinguish between the layman's term and the scientific term, because they're all just thinking this: http://www.vegetableseed.net/heirloom-ve...

Answer 3

Any scientific terms will be finger spelled.  If it is being taught in a science class, the teacher/interpreter may choose to use an abbrieviated form, such as c-y-p-h b-e-t-a or something similar, after the entire word had been spelled out the first time.

Answer 4

just use a little peace a paper and really small leters and pass the cheat note