Hi Charles,
yes – I agree –
especially your last comment about combining Spoken language with Sign
Language.
I am so astonished that
DEAF people still accept to read spoken language vocabularies in order to
describe their performance of an idea. I mean – we do have a writing systems
that allows to write and read Sign Langauge. I would expect any Sign Language instructor
and any Sign Language teacher to offer vocabulary and grammar and documents in
written Sign Language but not in “glosses” as we call this mix up of spoken words
( or parts of spoken words) in a sequence that goes along with the sign –
sequence. I mean reading SignWriting you get to know what and how to sign. Same
is not true with this loan of Spoken Language.
Time will come that SL – students
will get the chance to receive well prepared documents in SignWriting in order
to achieve a higher level in Sign Language.
Time will come that DEAF
people will find themselves well supported that their language – Sign Language –
is taken as a language of its own – no need to ask for loans from the spoken
language -. Ha – well – may be except for the “Mundbilder”.
Stefan ;-)
Von: SignWriting
List: Read and Write Sign Languages [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Im Auftrag von Charles Butler
Gesendet: Sonntag, 12. Dezember
2010 01:06
An: [log in to unmask]
Betreff: Re: AW: AW: Creating a
sign language ordered dictionary
I understand your "search by word" for practical
reasons, I guess what I am looking to would be a future in which signed
language dictionaries are just that, signed language dictionaries, not
bilingual dictionaries in a spoken language with signs attached to them.
You wouldn't teach English grammar in French, nor French
grammar in English unless you intended that a person never be fluent in English
alone or French alone.
So in teaching ASL, or LIBRAS, or Ethiopian Sign Language,
I'm trying to truly think in a signed language, in projection, so if I want to
find a sign, I want to look it up by handshape because I may see someone using
the sign and I have no idea, even in context, what it may mean.
I got so frustrated when I was taking ASL at Gallaudet
University and the question was asked "how many signs can you think of
which use the "little finger" handshape.
The lists of signs included, spaghetti, innocent, idea, draw,
etc, but every one of the lists was in English words, in what I thought was a
"total immersion" sign language class.
I was the only one taking notes in sign language, so if I
saw a sign I didn't know, I tried not to ask in English, but in sign, and expected
a signed answer, not an English language answer, but the teacher, who was
native Deaf, kept on writing down English words, not what I wanted at all.
Charles
From: Stefan
Wöhrmann <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sat, December 11, 2010
6:54:36 PM
Subject: AW: AW: Creating a sign
language ordered dictionary
Hi Charles,
thanks for your explanation.
Well for practical
reasons I am happy to look up a sign from „searching by word“.
Sometimes I feel lucky to
look for signs by symbol – especially if I get a message in ASL and have to
look for the meaning of a sign.
I see that you would love
to have a dictionary in sign order. – This is interesting.
I do not know what categories
would be first, second third – if I would go to sort all the signs.
Thanks for your answer.
Stefan
Von: SignWriting
List: Read and Write Sign Languages [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Im Auftrag von Charles Butler
Gesendet: Sonntag, 12. Dezember
2010 00:14
An: [log in to unmask]
Betreff: Re: AW: Creating a sign
language ordered dictionary
Okay, when Valerie first came out with Sign Writing for
Everyday Use, we had an order to the signs within each group, following in a
logical order from straight to bent to curled. With the growth of the
system, handshapes have been added without a logical progression so that
missing ones may be inferred but there is no order to them.
For a complete dictionary, in sign order, then pushing
"Sign Frequency" will print them by group and in order of the numbers
of the codes, but that coding is not consistent across the board.
When I teach the system, I teach it in an order, Group 1,
then Group 2, then Group 3, then Group 4, but i also attempt to put the actual
handshapes in a logical order, and at the moment that varies from sign language
to sign language depending on which handshapes are actually used in the
language.
I published, some time ago, a proposed system to put
1) handshape
2) orientation starting from facing the reader, half left or
right, back of hand, face up, forward half left or right, face down
3) rotation from vertical rotating clockwise.
4) --- second handshape would fit here if more than one hand
is in the sign, orientation, rotation
4A - I put location here, Valerie puts it at the end, from
her experiments with Deaf looking up signs.
5) --- contact (touch, strike, brush, rub)
6) --- finger movement
7) --- vertical movement
8) --- horizontal movement
9) --- curved vertical movement
10) --- curved horizontal movement
11) --- circles
12) --- speed
13) --- facial expressions
So, for example, the following are in Sign-Symbol-Sequence
Order for me. All two handed signs come after all one handed signs for
the same orientation.
= Group 1, primary
orientation, no movement
= Group 1, primary
orientation, movement vertical,
= Group 1, primary
orientation, first hand, group one, primary orientation second hand, movement
horizontal, facial involvement (ALL TWO HANDED SIGNS COME AFTER ONE HANDED
SIGNS)
= Group 1, primary
orientation, first hand, group 5, back of hand, second hand, movement
horizontal (GROUP 5 comes after GROUP 1)
= Group 1, second
orientation, 45 counter clockwise, circular motion, facial involvement
- Group 1, first
hand, second orientation, 45 counter clockwise, Group 1, crooked handshape,
finger movement, finger movement. Is this before the one above from the
finger movement?
(SKIPPING A FEW)
= Group 5, first
hand, forward, half, 45 counter clockwise, Group 5, second hand, forward, half,
45 clockwise, held in between, forward twice
Group 5,
side forward, half, 45 counter clockwise, Group 5 side forward, half, 45
clockwise, held in between, twice forward twice, slow
The Sign Symbol
Sequence may order the signs if each of them has been ordered, but I have not
sufficiently experimented to see if one enters signs and then orders them by
one's chosen order whether the "symbol frequency" will follow that
order.
From: Stefan
Wöhrmann <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sat, December 11, 2010
12:08:45 PM
Subject: AW: Creating a sign
language ordered dictionary
Hi Charles,
can you explain? I do not
understand.
Stefan ;-)
Von:
SignWriting List: Read and Write Sign Languages
[mailto:[log in to unmask]EDU] Im Auftrag von Charles
Gesendet: Samstag, 11. Dezember
2010 14:29
An: [log in to unmask]
Betreff: Re: Creating a sign
language ordered dictionary
But can you print a dictionary from Sign Puddle in one's
chosen order without constructing it yourself? I order my dictionary down to
the individual handshape and movement, and that is all by hand.
Charles
From: Stefan
Wöhrmann <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sat, December 11, 2010
2:37:24 AM
Subject: AW: I need your help: DOS
Box and SignWriter 4.4
Hi Meryeme,
I am no software expert
whatsoever and it took me a long time to understand the tricks how to install
the DOS-Box proberly to work together with the SW 4.4 Program (except for
printing) . I wrote a short tutorial –
http://www.gebaerdenschrift.de/documents/dos_winxp/dos_box_installation.htm
Perhaps this can support
you in your efforts?
In addition to that. It
takes some time to become an expert with this DOS – SignWriter 4.4
Program - you have to download and install the dictionary ...
As Valerie mentioned
before – the SignPuddle software allows an easy way to create entries, to
create documents, to send emails written in SignWriting, to look up terms word
– to sign order and to look up signs – symbol –to sign order, you can search
for frequencies (what are the most often used symbols) ....
Good luck
Stefan
Von: SignWriting List
: Read and Write Sign Languages [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Im Auftrag von Meryeme Ayache
Gesendet: Freitag, 10. Dezember
2010 22:04
An: [log in to unmask]
Betreff: Re: I need your help
hey Valerie and Stefan
:-)
I hope that
you all are doing well. I installed the DOSbox but I have problem in some DOS
commands like 'md \sw' in order to create f directory but I will keep trying I
think that is because I am using window 7 but I am not sure. and by the way I used the
ASL SignPuddle Dictionary and I really like but I don't wanna use it in my
project because I need to enter the sign writing manually because I have to
verify first if the entered character belong to the list of sign-writing
language or not and that is what we call it (the lexical analyzer :-) and
it is the first step to realize a compiler I will let you updated of my
researches
--
Meryeme Ayache.
Elève ingénieur ( 2ème année )
Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Informatique et d'Analyse des Systèmes (