Re: Sign Language?

Peter Clark nevesht:
>
>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).
Check the Ethnologue(it is on the Web) for a listing of sign languages of
the world, there is also information in The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of
Language.
>
> > >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? :)
From the Greek for "hand" so /k/.



-Wayne Chevrier








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