Shaylee, a young deaf girl, found a new way to share pop songs.
The young girl, who has gone viral in the past for signing Christmas stories, just released a new video where she performs American Sign Language with her sister. Through ASL, the two young girls create new pop songs that have never been sung or released before.
“Even though it's in a signed language, it's instantly recognizable as music,” according to Mental Floss. “The rhythm, the lyrical repetition, and the message, which ranges from the inspirational (‘Shine like a star’), to the political (‘Ya know the world is shaking’), to the personal (‘I love my sister forever’), to the situational (‘This is exhausting. Just go to sleep’) makes it a perfect bedtime pop riff.”
See Shaylee perform the songs with her sister in the video below:
Shaylee and Ivy’s mother Sheena McFeely said the video is the result of encouraging her children to be themselves.
“My husband and I, raising two girls, challenged ourselves as parents to let our girls BE,” she wrote in an email to the Deseret News. “This whole song/poetry represents just that. Without us telling them what to say or restricting them, the girls are able to freely express through their first and home language — American Sign Language (ASL). It also teaches that music comes from within, not the ears.”
The two sisters are more than just viral superstars because of the videos. Shaylee and Ivy also run the ASL Nook Facebook page, on which they share some different lessons about learning sign language.
Shaylee’s seen success with ASL videos on her own in the past, too. She’s not only signed Christmas stories (like one about the Grinch and another about Rudolph), but Shaylee and her family also recently appeared in a commercial for Walt Disney World.
Somewhere between 500,000 and 2 million Americans practice sign language. This could potentially make ASL one of the most widely used languages throughout the world, according to Gallaudet University.
“Using the high figure of 2,000,000 users of ASL, it would place third on this list, behind Spanish and Chinese. On the other hand, using the low figure of 500,000, ASL would fall to 18th place on this list, behind Polish and ahead of Japanese.”
Herb Scribner is a writer for Deseret Digital Media.