Sign language is a complex sign system of information transfer, with which not everyone is familiar. Most of us think so, however, without suspecting it, several times a day use certain non-verbal signals that have a certain meaning, thereby communicating in sign language.
Sign language for everyone
Of course, this is not about that difficult language of deaf-mute people, with the help of which you can convey any information and thereby build a full-fledged communication. We are talking about the gestures that exist in human culture, for which a certain meaning is fixed.
Handshake, traditional in the whole world, for example, can be attributed to such means of non-verbal communication. The appearance of such a signal is not accidental - when we give a hand to another person, we show him thereby that we are unarmed and do not represent a danger.
About motivation to replace words with gestures
As we can see, words are replaced by gestures for a reason. People should have the motivation to do this. Often their goal was to soften an abusive phrase: in this way, a person, without uttering a obscene word, could tell the interlocutor everything he thinks about him.
Surely, after all, most of us know how a gesture is translated into a verbal language with the middle finger showing the other. A cultured person does not dare to say such words aloud while in a public place, but he can intelligibly convey information with gestures.
Kukish is … In Russia and in other countries
But to show the middle finger in order to indicate to the interlocutor his place is a Western European tradition. And what about us, in Russia? The Russian analogue of the foreign “faka” is a cookie, or a fig, as this gesture is also called.
However, it can not be called actually Russian, because this gesture was not invented by our people. In Russia, the time of the appearance of cookies is, according to one version, the time of mass emigration of Germans to our country. There, this gesture is tantamount to a proposal to have sex. Most likely, when the Germans showed figs to Russian girls, they, not fully understanding the meaning of the gesture and trying to refuse the annoying gentleman, also twisted their fingers in response. So in Russia the meaning "cookie is a refusal" has become fixed.
Another version of the appearance of cookies in Russia is connected with France, more precisely, with the French language, which has the expression "faire la figue à", that is, humiliate someone, mock him, and even earlier there was the phrase "far la fica", which from Italian translates as "show figs." Hence the negative, abusive semantics of cookies.
By the way, in the East - in China, Japan - this gesture does not mean any extensive curse, but is clearly connected with the male reproductive organ. Phallic symbols are often used as amulets, so archaeologists often find amulets in the form of figs (cookies).
However, in modern Russia, the significance of a gross and sharp refusal to the interlocutor of something was fixed to the cookie. It is not for nothing that a cookie is jokingly called a three-finger rejection configuration.
To summarize a short summary. A kukish is a gesture that is a clenched fist with a thumb stuck between the middle and forefinger. At different times in different countries, figs could mean similar, but slightly different in meaning, expressions and concepts.
Synonyms
Despite the fact that we always show the same gesture, he has several names at once.
Synonyms for cookie are figs (or figushka), and dule, and shish. Choose which one to use, choose for yourself, but remember that all these words are colloquial in their stylistic coloring, which means that the scope of their use is limited. Such words are unacceptable to express themselves in a situation of official, business communication, in secular society, in public speaking.
