The Hand is really the heart of gesture

Overhead Hand Gestures

Though the face seems to be physiologically the best equipped part of the body for the elaboration of gestures, the hand has in fact been the most often and the most highly elaborated. Nonartifact sign languages (знаковые системы, при которых не используются специальные проспособления), those not using flags, smoke, or mechanical devices, are regularly hand signal systems because the hands are relatively free - imagine a leg signal system - and highly particularly. Why the face has not been exploited, with its even higher potential articulateness, must be explained by its lower visibility, being virtually limited to intimate and personal distances, while hand signs can be read at social and even public distances that are not too distant.

Organizing the great number of hand gestures presents a big problem, but since one system seems about as arbitrary as another, the presentation of hand gestures here will follow the organization of earlier chapters and discuss them from the top downward with apology for the great cluster of hand gestures normally made at about heart lever. Some, of course, can be made at various heights and are presented at their commonest height.

Hand gestures, then, begin with the hands being "waved above the head while the person is jumping up and down, as we have already seen, to get attention or give warning (40). These are followed by only slightly more sedate signs of victory such as Nixon's triple V, the raised hand or finger of the volunteer or the person raised and waved hand of long-distance hello or good-bye, the similar gestures of raising a forward palm to sign wait, stop, or warning, pointing at a star, all of which are made above the head and none of which offer much contrast between English and Russians. Only Russians, however, raise an index rather like requesting attention to indicate that a decision will be made by higher-ups, including God.

Also still above the head are the English success sign of scoring one, in which the index is wet on the tongue and a point is marked up on an imaginary blackboard as in darts or pool (41), and the shared gesture of height, a palm-down hand held high or low. Only the English make the overhead gesture of a wet finger in the wind, made by wetting an index and holding it up to see which way the wind is blowing, a sign of the opportunist (42).

Though they involve artifacts as well, mention should be made of the shared gestures of raising the hat, tipping the hat, and touching the hat or saluting as gestures of hello and good-bye from men to women. This deferential shortening by tipping the hat is emphasized or prolonged by holding the hat by the side with one hand or in front of the chest with two hands or over the heart with the right hand. These gestures are more deferential as they are more difficult, from touching to tipping to raising to holding with one to holding with two hands. Holding the hat over the heart is for saluting the flag and honoring the hands or over the heart with the right hand. These gestures are more deferential as they are more difficult, from touching to tipping to raising to holding with one to holding with two hands. Holding the hat over the heart is for saluting the flag and honoring the dead (43).

It should be mentioned that only rather old Russian men wear any hat from May to September, and the common fir or knit hats worn from October to May are rather difficult if not dangerous to remove, so they are not typically tipped. Fedoras (мягкая шляпка) are also rather rare, so that tipping is rather rare among Russians apparently considered rather old-fashioned.

Similar salute gesture without the hat but approximating the shared military salute are also used for saying hello or good-bye or saying a joking, "Yes, Sir!" of obedience to either men or women, but the gesture is usually at least ironic. British and former Commonwealth English hold the palm forward in saluting. Russians and Americans hold the palm downward. At just a slightly lower level, Russian and Englishwomen frequently signal excitement and/or enthusiasm with widespread hands at the level of open mouth and eyes or a clasping of hands at shoulder level. Either of these gestures or the first followed immediately by the second, may express these emotions.

The English gesture for a halo (нимб) or a holier-than-thou poison (лицемерный человек, святоша), made by forming with indexes and thumbs a halo held horizontally above the head in imitation of an angel, is normally used with irony (44). From the sublime to the somewhat less, there is also the English-only chain-pulling gesture (45), from the old-fashioned, overhead-tank toilets, that means flush it or send it down the tubes, that is, nonsense, poppycock (ерунда), or rot, On the other hand, the gesture may also simply ask, 'Where is the John, loo, WC (обозначения туалета), or toilet?'

About the Head

Shared grooming or preening gestures include smoothing the hair on the top of the head or the side or sweeping hair off the forehead and perhaps behind the ear (46), which show a bit of vanity with a smile by trying to approximate the cultural ideals of masculine or feminine appearance, but with a frown signal worry or difficulty (47). The male head scratch of surprise or puzzlement is also shared as is the vertical, open-hand gesture saying, "Come," made by both men and women. At forehead level is the shared gesture for hot or sweat, in which the hand or a hooked index finger is drawn across the forehead and the 'sweat' then shaken to the ground. This gesture is also used to signal relief after a near miss or narrow escape(после того, как в последнее мгновение удалось таки что-то сделать или удалось избежать опасности). Hot is also signaled by both Russians and English by plucking the shirt in the middle of the chest and blowing down it or pulling it in and out to fan the chest. At the temple there is the shared gesture of the index turned in a circle, meaning a person has a loose screw, that is, is crazy. A gesture of similar meaning used by Russian children places the right thumb against the temple and pivots an open palm up and down to say, 'You're a fool.' It looks a bit like a one-handed Elephant Ears below.

The English raise indexes at the temples to mean the devil (48), but the gesture may also be read as the horns of a cuckold or even a bull, meaning the other is talking a lot of bull, short and euphemistic for bullshit, meaning nonsense. Given the proper context the sign may also mean stud(жеребец) or male sexual athlete. Russian children raise spread index and middle fingers behind the head of another to mark the other as a devil (49). Adults making the same sign behind an adult male's head mark him a cuckold (рогоносец, обманутый муж). The gesture is usually teasing but potentially dangerous among adults.

Also shared is the ambiguous tapping of the forehead or temple with the index or the index and middle finger, which in both English and Russian means intelligent it accompanied by a smile but means stupid or insane if accompanied by a frown. Only Russians signal a similar meaning of stupid or 'I was a fool' by slapping the forehead with the fingers of a vertical palm then pivoting the hand until the fingers, which remain on the forehead, point down. It means 'My (or your) brain was upside-down.' The macho or sexual villain is signaled by both Russians and English by twisting the right end of a real or imaginary mustache, usually with narrowed eyes and sidelong glance (50), but only Russians signal the tsarist officer and sexual villain by grooming both ends of along mustache with right thumb and index. Stroking mustache and beard downward is a shared gesture of thoughtful-ness, but with narrowed eyes and sidelong glance means suspicion. Shooting oneself in the temple with a pointed index, meaning 'I could shoot myself' or 'I could shoot you', for some mistake, is shared, as are the beheading gestures (жест, имитирующий отрубание головы) of chopping the back of one's neck with the edge of a flattened hand (51) and cutting one's throat with an right index drawn across the throat (52), both meaning 'I (or you) should be killed,' Both Russians and English also occasionally circle their necks with a hand and raise its fist over a side-bent head as if hanging themselves (53). All these gestures mean that a gaffe has occurred (совершен проступок) and someone's head must roll.

English wet a little finger in the mouth and trace an eyebrow to indicate an effeminate or homosexual man (54) but have no gesture for lesbians. Russians have no gesture for either. Both cultures signal tiredness by rubbing the eyes or the eyebrows with spread thumb and index with the eyes closed or by facetiously panting like a dog with the tongue hanging out and the shoulders drooping. The Russians call this having one's tongue on the shoulder. Both Russians and English shade their eyes from the sun by raising a flattened hand to the eyebrows, but Russians also use this gesture to sign 'Look sharp,' 'Watch out,' or 'Keep your eyes peeled'(держи глаза открытыми, бди). Both warn another to pay attention by pointing to the object to be watched. Both cover the eyes with one or both hands as a sign they either cannot bear to watch or are too ashamed to meet the stares of others. It is frequently used facetiously to refer to a faux pas (ошибка, оплошность), particularly having forgotten something, which English also signal by hitting their foreheads with one or both fists (55) or with the heel of the hand (основание ладони) (56). Russians also hit their foreheads but to signal,
'You 're crazy' or frustration or constraint rather than regret. A very distinctive Russian-only gesture- remi-niscent of Polish jokes in English - signals doing things the hard way or doing things backward by reaching behind or over the head with the right hand to scratch the left ear. English sometimes playact (обыгрывают) the same meaning by putting the right foot on a chair and then bending to tie the shoelace of the left foot.

At about eye-level, both Russians and English join thumb, index, and middle finger of the right hand and write in the air or on the other hand to ask for the bill in a restaurant. Also shared is the gesture for taking a picture with a camera either to suggest a picture or often to suggest that what might be pictured is shameful or embarrassing and jokingly might be used in blackmail. The gesture is often accompanied by a clicking sound made by sucking the side teeth, and the fingers are closed a bit to signal tripping the shutter. An imitation of a telescope, made with two hollow fists held to one eye, or binoculars, made with two hollow fists held to two eyes, are shared gestures for spying or playing Peeping Tom (игра в разведчиков). A very common, distinctive, Russian-only gesture, for which there is no English equivalent, is made by looking through the grill formed by laying the spread indexes and middles of both hands over one another, palm to palm, to form an imitation of the bars of a prison window (57). It is a warning to another that what he is proposing will land him in prison. It acts out the Russian verbal warning, 'You'll see the sky in squares' that is, through the bars.

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* Слова в таких парах могут иметь соответствующие или не соответствующие друг другу значения.