Motion diagram. A Deaf-recorded clip from the PopSign corpus (CC BY 4.0) exists for this sign and can be placed here.
FAST
“fast”
How to make it
Point two index fingers forward, then snap them back into 'X' hooks.
Where the sign comes from
IconicThe sign visibly depicts its meaning — a present-day resemblance, not a historical claim.
A quick recoil — the speed is in how sharply the fingers snap back.
Sources
- ASL-LEX (iconicity)Sehyr, Zed Sevcikova, Naomi Caselli, Ariel Cohen-Goldberg, and Karen Emmorey. "The ASL-LEX 2.0 Project: A Database of Lexical and Phonological Properties for 2,723 Signs in American Sign Language." Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 26, no. 2 (2021): 263–277. link
The sign, taken apart
Every ASL sign is built from a handshape, a place it's made, and a movement. Learn to see these three and you can read and store any sign.
Handshape
Starts as index finger up, the rest closed; ends as index crooked into a hook.
Also: number 1
Location
Neutral space
Made at the neutral space.
Movement
a straight path
Both hands move together.
Palm facing down.