Finger Code
Experimental
The finger code is new. Its shapes and instrument layouts have not yet been tried by signers, receivers, or players, so they may change.
The finger code is a way to produce Ageben with your fingers instead of your voice. Each letter is a shape: a set of raised fingers. One hand shows vowels and the other shows consonants, so a whole syllable takes one beat, with both hands at once. The same shapes can be signed in the air, pressed into another person's hands, or played on a piano or a guitar, so one chart serves all of them. The code adds no words and no grammar: anything you can say, you can sign or play.
On this page
Counting on your fingers
Each spoken digit starts with its own consonant (counts): b for 1, d for 2, and so on to m for 0. In the finger code, each of these ten letters is shown as its digit, counted on your fingers the way you already count:
- 1 to 4 is a run: fingers raised in order, starting at the index finger (index; index + middle; index + middle + ring; all four).
- The thumb counts five: the thumb alone is 5, the thumb plus a run of 1 is 6, and so on up to the open hand for 9 (cue: the five bead on an abacus).
- 0 is the index and pinky (horns): the two outer fingers with an empty middle.
| Letter | Count | Shape |
|---|---|---|
b | 1 | index |
d | 2 | index + middle (V) |
g | 3 | index + middle + ring |
h | 4 | four fingers, thumb tucked (flat hand) |
z | 5 | thumb alone |
v | 6 | thumb + index (L) |
r | 7 | thumb + index + middle |
l | 8 | thumb + index + middle + ring |
n | 9 | open hand |
m | 0 | index + pinky (horns) |
The four consonants left over come next in alphabet order: th, w, y, x. They are the runs 1 to 4 again, with the fingers hooked: keep the base knuckle straight and curl the two outer joints, so the hook sticks out from the fist instead of folding into it. Straight fingers mean a digit letter; hooked fingers mean one of these four. The thumb is never hooked.
| Letter | Shape |
|---|---|
th | index, hooked |
w | index + middle, hooked |
y | index + middle + ring, hooked |
x | all four, hooked (claw) |
The vowels go on the other hand. That hand hangs on letter order: a run of 1 to 4 fingers starting at the pinky, first vowel to fourth. Pinky is a, four fingers is u. The consonant hand does not: it counts digit letters from the index. Piano keys and guitar bass still climb with the count, because vowel pitch also hangs on order (first is low, fourth is high).
| Vowel | Count | Shape |
|---|---|---|
a | 1 | pinky |
o | 2 | pinky + ring |
e | 3 | pinky + ring + middle |
u | 4 | four fingers |
Of the opposite vowels, a and u are one finger against four, as far apart as they are in pitch, and o and e are one finger apart. Pinky + ring is the hardest shape to hold, because the middle finger tends to rise with the ring: fold the thumb over the index and middle to keep them down. A fist is never a letter: it means this hand is silent on this beat.
The chart in Try it draws every shape in a sentence.
Two hands
Your dominant hand shows consonants and your other hand shows vowels. The consonant hand does more work (fourteen shapes, some of them hooked), so it gets your stronger hand. Neither hand moves around; each letter is only a change of fingers.
The consonant hand counts from the index and the vowel hand from the pinky, so index alone is only b, and pinky alone is only a. The consonant hand never uses pinky alone or middle + ring + pinky, which would look like vowels. The one shape on both hands is four fingers: u on the vowel hand and h on the consonant hand. So that a viewer can tell the hands apart, hold both palms toward the viewer, with the consonant hand's fingers pointing up and the vowel hand's fingers pointing sideways, toward the other hand. A left-handed signer's layout is the mirror image of a right-handed one; either way, the sideways fingers mark the vowel hand.
Try it shows both hands in this layout.
One beat per syllable
Ageben syllables have a fixed shape, so the code times them the same way every time. Each syllable takes one beat, and every beat is the same length, as in speech:
| In speech | In the finger code |
|---|---|
| A consonant and then a vowel | Both hands on the same beat |
| A vowel with no consonant before it | The vowel hand alone |
| Two consonants before a vowel | A grace shape: a quick shape for the first consonant, just before the beat |
| A consonant after a word's last vowel (-n, -l, -m, -r, a plural -x) | The consonant hand alone, one beat per letter. The last one is held through its beat |
| The first syllable of a word | A stronger beat |
| The gap between words | A one-beat rest |
| The end of a sentence | A longer rest, both hands silent |
Because each hand has its own letters, a beat always reads one way: one hand alone is either a vowel with no consonant before it or a consonant at the end of a word, and the direction of the fingers says which.
For example, thohem (if) is three beats:
| Beat | Consonant hand | Vowel hand |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (stronger) | th: index, hooked | o: pinky + ring |
| 2 | h: four fingers, thumb tucked | o: pinky + ring |
| 3, held | m: horns | fist |
Play any sentence in Try it to see its beats.
Signed
Hold the shapes up at chest height, palms toward the viewer. Each beat, both hands form their shapes and pulse forward together.
| Beat | Signed |
|---|---|
| Syllable | Both hands pulse forward together |
| Stronger first beat | A bigger pulse |
| Held letter | The shape stays still through the beat, with no pulse |
| Grace shape | A quick flash of the shape before the beat |
| Silent hand | Fist |
| Rest | Both fists drop |
Like fingerspelling, the finger code spells sounds, one letter at a time. It has no signs for whole words, and where your hands are in the space around you carries no meaning.
Pick Signed in Try it to watch a sentence signed.
Touch
The shapes can be felt as well as seen. Every touch mode uses the same chart:
| Mode | How |
|---|---|
| Tapping | Both hands tap their shapes on a table or on your thighs. It is silent, useful for practice and quiet use, and visible to anyone watching |
| Palm press | The signer presses the shapes into the receiver's upturned palms, each hand into the palm facing it |
| Hand over hand | The receiver rests a hand over each of the signer's hands and feels the shapes in the air |
When pressing, straight fingers land on their fingertips, spread at their natural spacing, and hooked fingers land on their middle knuckles. Each finger leaves one point of pressure, so the receiver reads a shape from things touch picks up well: how many points there are, how far the group reaches from the index edge (on the vowel hand, from the pinky edge), whether the thumb's point is there, the gap in the middle for m, and a soft fingertip against a hard knuckle for straight against hooked.
| Beat | Touch |
|---|---|
| Syllable | A tap or press, both hands together |
| Stronger first beat | A firmer press |
| Held letter | The fingers stay down |
| Rest | Both hands lift briefly. This also marks the gap between words |
In a palm press there is no finger direction, so the receiver tells the hands apart by which palm is touched. Agree on the signer's dominant hand before you start.
Pick Touch in Try it to see a sentence pressed into a receiver's palms.
Piano
On a piano, every note is a black key. The black keys make one five-note scale, so any notes you play together sound pleasant. The left hand plays vowels and the right hand plays consonants for every player, left-handed or not, so the consonants sit on top.
Pressing a whole run would sound as a blur of neighboring notes that is hard to hear apart. So on the keys you strike where the count ends: only the last finger of a run goes down, plus the thumb when the thumb is part of the count. A vowel run ends at its innermost finger, so the key climbs with the count, and each vowel's key is its pitch. The horns shape for m presses both of its fingers. Fingers are numbered 1 (thumb) to 5 (pinky).
| Hand | Thumb (1) | 2 | 3 | 4 | Pinky (5) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Right (consonants) | F♯5 z | G♯5 b | A♯5 d | C♯6 g | D♯6 h |
| Left (vowels) | C♯4 hook mark | A♯3 u | G♯3 e | F♯3 o | D♯3 a |
The other digit letters combine the thumb with a run's last finger: r is thumb + 3, l thumb + 4, n thumb + 5, and m is 2 + 5.
A key cannot be hooked, so the left thumb is the hook mark: a hooked letter is its straight letter plus the left thumb. th is b + hook, w is d + hook, y is g + hook, and x is h + hook. Neighboring fingers would strike neighboring keys, which sound harsh together, so v (thumb + index) is the one letter you learn separately: on piano it is z + hook.
Play detached and without pedal, so each key comes up at the end of its beat. A held letter keeps its keys down for one beat. Leave a one-beat rest after each word and two more at the end of a sentence.
Pick Piano in Try it to hear a sentence and see its keys.
Guitar
The guitar is tuned to open G (D G D G B D, low to high). It keeps the code's two hands and its beats, but each hand gets its own strings and its own shapes, because a guitar string sounds only one note at a time.
The picking hand plays consonants on the four open treble strings, which the fretting hand never touches: the thumb on the D below middle C, and the index, middle, and ring fingers on the G, B, and D above it. As on piano, a run sounds only its last finger's string, and the thumb adds its own string when the thumb is part of the count:
| Letter | Strings |
|---|---|
b | G |
d | B |
g | high D |
h | G + B + high D (all three fingers) |
z | low D |
v | low D + G |
r | low D + B |
l | low D + high D |
n | all four |
m | G + high D (the two outer fingers) |
A string cannot be hooked either, so the hooked letters take the next string up. th is b plus the next string (G + B), and w is d plus the next string (B + high D). y is the thumb plus th, and x is the thumb plus w.
| Letter | Strings |
|---|---|
th | G + B |
w | B + high D |
y | low D + G + B |
x | low D + B + high D |
The fretting hand plays vowels on the two lowest strings (the 6th, tuned to D, and the 5th, tuned to G), without picking: it hammers a finger down on a fret hard enough to sound the note. The vowels climb the scale in count order:
| Vowel | Note | Fret |
|---|---|---|
a | E | 6th string, fret 2 |
o | G | 6th string, fret 5 |
e | B | 5th string, fret 4 |
u | D | 5th string, fret 7 |
The two D strings in the consonant hand are the same note an octave apart, so z (low D) and g (high D) differ only by how high they sound.
Pick Guitar in Try it to hear a sentence and print its tab.
Try it
Type Ageben, or click a sentence below, and press Play. Pick a channel to see or hear the same beats in that system. Click a beat to hold it and see each hand's shape. The chart below the beats lists the shapes for the channel you picked. Numerals and text in spans are skipped.
zazozon vowurol thohem blerulal.Azozon walks if it rains.zerulal gohem blugalal.There is rain if there are clouds.zazozon vowurol uom berulal.Azozon walks despite the rain.zodozel vowurol. xahom zogozel veruvol.A dog walks. Therefore a cat runs.
zu stressed first beat-n coda: consonant hand alone, the last one heldb› grace shape before the beatClick a beat to hold it.