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. 

 

image.php.png  = Group 1, primary orientation, no movement

 

image.php.png = Group 1, primary orientation, movement vertical, 

 

image.php.png = 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)

 

image.php.png = Group 1, primary orientation, first hand, group 5, back of hand, second hand, movement horizontal (GROUP 5 comes after GROUP 1) 

 

image.php.png = Group 1, second orientation, 45 counter clockwise, circular motion, facial involvement

 

 

image.php.png - 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)

 

 

image.php.png = Group 5, first hand, forward, half, 45 counter clockwise, Group 5, second hand, forward, half, 45 clockwise, held in between, forward twice 

 

image.php.png  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 Butler
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 ( Rabat ).