Re: Sign Language?

On Wednesday 15 January 2003 01:48 pm, wayne chevrier wrote:
> Peter nevesht:
> >1. Determine what the predominant spoken language is.
> >         This is because, at least in this world, no sign language has
> >developed apart
> >from a spoken language. I am aware of Nicaraguan Sign Language, which
> > sorta developed spontaneously, but even so, the students who developed it
> > were at the school to learn lip-reading. I'd be interested to know how
> > much Spanish was incorporated into it--anyone have any good links on its
> > linguistic aspects?
>
> Actually, most sign languages are independent(except for some vocabulary
> influence), the grammars are independent.
        I should have been more clear; yes, the grammars are independent, but (aside
from the instances that you mention below), vocabulary is influenced by the
spoken language.

> Modern sign languages have finger spelling, but not Mayan, or the languages
> on that archipelago that belongs to Colombia.
        Really? How interesting--do you have more information? Links? I'm only
familiar with ASL (and Russian sign language, although I've forgotten almost
everything except for a few signs).

> >3. Decide on about 100-200 or so "primitives"
> >         By "primitives" I mean whatever the signed equivalent of
> > "phoneme" would be.
> The term is chereme.
        Ah. Good to know. Is that pronounced with a /tS/, /S/, or /k/? I analyze the
-eme ending as something akin to morphEME or phonEME, but what does the stem
mean? (Since -eme is French, would cher- then mean "dear? :)
        :Peter