Re: Writting Sign Languages


Noon napisal(a):
Hello All,
I'm looking to find those who work in the field of sign languages, and
have worked with systems of writing down signed languages. I have only
looked into two of the known systems (SignFont, and SignWriting).


There are (or were) a bunch of systems kicking around for writing sign
languages. I looked into a lot of them when I was doing research on
Polish Sign Language in the 90's as I was convinced (and still am) that
a lack of good writing system was holding back sign linguistics (and
more broadly sign languages in general).

SignFont materials fwere hard to come by in 1991 when I first went
looking. It seemed to have been all design and not much follow thru in
terms of implementation. It went thru some revision by the time it had
some presence on the web (mostly for the better).
I also liked the linear layout of sign font, it's overall more
attractive appearance and the fact that it could be easily written by
hand and easily incorporated into English text (provided you could find
the darned font). But that first version just flat out didn't work for
what I wanted to do.

Sign writing doesn't have the advantages of SignFont and proceeds from
an entirely different set of assumptions, it functions a little like a
sign IPA and the creator of the system assumes that unecessary details
will be dropped over time. IIRC Peter doesn't consider it real writing.
For me it was also too exact (phonetic rather than phonemic) and not
easy to process LtoR (apparently it's easier to process for deaf people
trained in it when written vertically). It does have the advantage of
the most systematic implementation.

I also had some material for HamNoSys (out of Hamburg originally
developed for German Sign Language research). More like SignFont but
not nearly as aesthetically pleasing with some SignWriting like
features (things written at different heights).

Stokoe notation has the disadvantage of not indicating non-manual
features (which mark sentences and sentence type) and some other
underspecification issues (though I think some features were developed
to fill it out but it's been a while and I'm hazy on the details).
Stokoe notation also is stuck (last I knew) in a simultaneous model of
sign phonology that no one still believed in by the 90s.

Ultimately I used my own system, most similar to SignFont but with the
handshapes more worked out, a very different approach to spatial
indication and body locations and an attempt to write in the
Location-Movement model of sign phonology (which I found more appealing
than competing models) rather than the static simultaneous system of
the original SignFont (which also later moved toward a more L-M model
itself) and some other changes that would qualify it as a separate
system. Sadly my fonts are stuck on a powerbook with a broken floppy
drive.

Although the CW among adults is that no practical writing system for
sign languages is needed, apparently deaf children go nuts for them
when they're presented in the right way which means if somebody
produced lots of materials in a system, children would probably use it
and if the materials kept up with them, would probably continue to use
it into adulthood.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Settling an Argument - Assembly *IS* a Language, Right?
    ... The limited range of expression is what's rude about early Sumerian ... the oldest Sumerian cuneiform writing could not render ... the silliness of expecting computer languages to have anything to do ... And that's not the meaning of "trolling." ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Settling an Argument - Assembly *IS* a Language, Right?
    ... Peter T. Daniels wrote: ... The limited range of expression is what's rude about early Sumerian ... the oldest Sumerian cuneiform writing could not render ... the silliness of expecting computer languages to have anything to do ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Writing and the Tower of Babel story
    ... after the Tower fell. ... but isn't it a but odd that most or all writing seems to have begun ... some of whom speak different languages. ... be found after the formation of a city, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Reading depends on writing, in Chinese
    ... >>> listening, speaking, reading, and writing. ... > the local cinema films in one of the two languages were ... file .signature infected by signature virus. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Writting Sign Languages
    ... have worked with systems of writing down signed languages. ... looked into two of the known systems (SignFont, ... I think I actually prefer it over SignWriting. ...
    (sci.lang)