Re: Some thoughts on mutli-modal (signing / speech) languages and communication.

----- Original Message ----
> From: Sai Emrys <saizai@...>
> It could be parallel yet have either part be droppable (lossily would
> be easier, but a lossless variant that expands temporally could be
> devised too).
>
> - Sai
Spoken language is already like this, to a degree. Body language adds a great deal of
subtextual nuance, and is somewhat standardized (at least within cultures, if
not universal to the species). A lack of body language results in a lossy
communication (compare radio news to TV news). For that matter, we can
determine the nature of a discussion, although not the specific content, based
on body language alone: If we see two (orally communicating) people engaged in
a discussion on the other side of a soundproof glass, we can tell whether it's
a cordial chat or an argument, whether they like each other or have emotional
distance, etc. Body language is nowhere near as robust as sign language,
naturally, but it is an important part of a full interpersonal communication
stream.

I bring this up to support your point. The framework for a dual modal system
exists; in another world, the two systems might be in greater balance. On my
conworld, for instance, one of the two sentient species has four arms, the
upper pair of which are largely vestigial. Since this conversation, I've been
thinking about how they might use those vestigial arms to chat while their
lower arms are engaged in crafts or other physical labor.

On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 04:24, Sai Emrys <saizai@...> wrote:
> On the written + spoken multimodality:
>
> This occurs all the time - it's called "a professor with horrible handwriting".
I've been told that two Chinese people who speak different dialects will air-write
characters when they're stumbling on the correct pronunciation. If so, that's
an example of mixed-mode.

-- Paul

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