Re: NonVerbal Conlang?

Sally wrote:
<<
Is the proper term for "oral" in signing "verbal"?  A *verbal*
language as opposed to one signed by the hands?
 >>

No, "oral" is the term.  But recall: it was one person that posted the
question, and they used the term "non-verbal".  Seeing that word,
one was left with two possibilities: (1) a language without verbs,
or (2) a language that didn't have a spoken component.  Though
technically speaking the first definition is the correct one, pragmatic
concerns indicated to most that the second definition was the
appropriate one.  After all, the goal in responding was to answer
the question of the poster.  One could either ask for clarification,
or go on one's pragmatic instincts.  For myself, given the volume
of messages on the list, what I know about the world, and what
I could guess about the intentions of the poster (clarified further
by what he wrote in his original post, where he talked specifically
about non-oral communication systems, and not languages without
verbs), I went ahead and skipped the clarificatory step and went
with the response--and also used the term again in my e-mail, in
keeping with the title.

So that's why I interacted with the term "non-verbal" the way I did.
And because I was thinking that way, when I saw you responded
with Kelen, I first thought, "Wait...Kelen has a signing component...?"
Oops!

-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/

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