Re: Sign Languages (was My new treasure)

>From: Arnt Richard Johansen <arntrich@...>
>Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 23:24:32 +0100
>
>On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Bob Greenwade wrote:
>
> >     Speaking of sign languages...
> >     1) Has anyone here ever developed a sign language as a companion to
>a
> > spoken/written conlang?  (I'm thinking of doing that for one or two of
>Rav
> > Zarruvo's daughter languages after they're completed.)
>
>The closest I know of is a language for an alien species who sign with
>their tentacles.  I can't remember what it was called, though.
I believe that was Rikchik, or something similar.  The creator of said lang
was an active memeber happily discussing it to my utter confusion when I
first joind this list many moons ago.

But
>constructed sign languages is a fascinating idea, and not only as a
>companion to a spoken language.  Even though apparently only deaf people
>develop sign languages in our world, why should it have to be that way in
>a world we make up ourselves?
>
Not so.  Monastic orders, tribes who come in frequent contact with outsiders
(Plains Indians) and tribes who have ritual periods of silence (Australian
Aboriginies) have also developed signed languages.

>Have any of you heard about Gestuno, by the way?  All I know about it, is
>that it is a signed IAL, that (surprise, surprise) failed dismally.
>
From what I've been told it IS actually used at internation events in the
Deaf community.  From what I remember of the introduction to the book I once
saw, Gestuno was sort of assembled from signs in various (mostly European)
sign languages, with the signs being chosen for "high iconicity" meaning
those signs which should be easiest for a non-speaker to guess the meanig of
from shape or motion of the sign.

> >     2) Does anyone know of a standardized way of representing sign
>language
> > other than little pictures of hand positions?  (I saw an ASL dictionary
> > once that had something like that, but I don't remember what it was
>called
> > or anything like that.)
>
>I'm not sure what kind of little pictures you're referring to.  I've seen
>a dictionary for Norwegian Sign Language, containing a few hundred words,
>each page with a line drawing of a person signing the word, with some
>arrows superimposed to indicate motion.  These arrows seem to be fairly
>standardized in visual descriptions of Norwegian Sign Language, but I
>haven't seen corresponding material on other sign languages.
>
Most sign language materials are presented in the same manner.

>On the other hand there are "real" writing systems for sign
>languages, that use stylicized symbols representing hands, arms and face,
>together with other symbols, that can express sentences and longer texts
>in sign languages.  As far as I can remember, all the ones that exist are
>made to fit one specific language.
The Stokoe notation was invented for the scientific study of ASL (and has
been criticised for not representing enough phonemes).  I have seen Stokoe
used for ASL and for Thai Sign Language.  I have a Taiwan Sign Language book
which uses a variant of Stokoe along with line drawings.


None of them are widely used, but if
>any of you are interested, I can try to find a reference.
>
Here's an ASCII version of Stokoe:
http://www.bsl-infoweb.org.uk/notation.htm

>The lack of a writing system is in fact one of the main problems of
>preserving deaf culture.  A couple of years ago there was a fund-raising
>campaign here in Norway for a project on translating Norwegian
>children's novels into NSL, and filming them on video.  Of course, most
>deaf people can read the language of the surrounding culture, but reading
>entire books in a foreign (second) language, as Norwegian is to deaf
>poeple living in Norway, is something that not many young children can do.
>
>-arj
I spent last night with my friends trying to figure out how many distinct
hand shapes there are in Taiwan sign language. A lot.  We counted 48, but
some may be allophones and we may have missed some on the first go round.  I
learned the TSL sign for "bilingual or polyglot" last night.

And curiosity fro the exchange with Christophe got to me and I asked
specifically about TSL names and, after explaining about ASL sign names,
learned that TSL has sign names too.  Most of my friends names (I have a
whole list of names now!) are unrelated to their Chinese names:  there's
V-neck (she wears V-neck sweaters), Aboriginie, Crooked-teeth, Dragon (based
on his family name, Gong1), Wood-fourdots (a depiction for his third name),
Scar, Cat-tall, Overbite, Big-forehead, and Commie (she's recently from
China).  There's also one that is, appearantly meaningless and one more that
is a translation of a character I don't know, brb, Yong2 - banian tree or
Fuzhou.


I had a productive evening.

Adam

So lift the cup of joy and take a big drink.
In spite of it all it's a beautiful world.
-------Suzanne Knutzen



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