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Re: How to spell a gesture

From:Muke Tever <hotblack@...>
Date:Saturday, February 19, 2005, 4:36
Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> wrote:
> --- Muke Tever <hotblack@...> wrote: > >> Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> wrote: >> Probably like this: http://signwriting.org/ >> > > Interesting, but not at all what I had in mind since > this system uses gobs of hard-to-draw two-dimensional > pictures and symbols.
According to "Writing by Hand in Signwriting": http://www.signwriting.org/archive/docs1/sw0005-Write-By-Hand.pdf (which contains several images of handwritten signwriting) there seems to be a shorthand system as well.
> What I have in mind is a linear alphabetic script that > can, with the appropriate font, be typed into a computer,word by word, line by line.
They seem to have enlisted Michael Everson to look into getting it implemented into Unicode. I don't know the details, tho. But there are a couple of programs that allow direct input of Signwriting text.
> Go to that website and look at the symbol for "forum" > and compare that to something like > > ['(-C&C > > which might be interpreted as "Tap chest with palm, > change to two claw hands face to face shoulder length > apart." Much easier to type than the complex > two-dimensional diagram of signwriting.
Maybe, but fiddling with the Signwriting IME it seems to be something that wouldnt be too hard to figure out--it can be entered entirely by keyboard, though "claw hands face to face" itself takes about seven keystrokes.
> They try to draw a picture of the object or concept. > I'm trying to give instructions for duplicating > (possibly mentally) a manual gesture.
Actually they do try to duplicate the gesture. The problem is that the gestures in sign language are a lot more complicated than "palm taps palm, then palm taps chest". The symbol for "forums" appears to be "closed fists with extended index fingers pointing upwards--the left fist with its back to the reader, and the right one with its back to the writer--touch face to face three times moving in a clockwise horizontal arc", for example, if I'm reading it correctly. *Muke! -- website: http://frath.net/ LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/ deviantArt: http://kohath.deviantart.com/ FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki: http://wiki.frath.net/