Initialization consists in using the first letter of the corresponding word from the surrounding spoken language to create a sign. It can be signed in two different ways: using the manual alphabet or a handshape that is similar to the letter from the alphabet, such as in (a) and (b). In (a) the handshape visually resembles the letter T from the written language, but it is not the actual handshape from the manual alphabet. In (b), the non-dominant hand is the base of the figure and the movement of the sign is performed with the letter E which iconically goes upwards. In both cases, a specific movement can be added to integrate the handshape into another sign.
a) tutor (‘guardian’)
(extracted from the corpus created in Villaécija, 2019)
b) exponent (‘exponent’)
(extracted from the corpus created in Villaécija, 2019)