Re: Mathematical ASL?

Stephen J. Herschkorn wrote:
> This from a good friend who is technically very savvy and quite famliar
> with ASL.

> > Interestingly, things like arithmetic are arguably more
> > straightforward in ASL than in english. Because it is a spatial
> > language, it can represent spatial concepts (like "add up these two
> > columns of numbers, take the sums at the bottom and calculate their
> > ratio") extremely clearly and concisely. For hearing people learning
> > sign language, watching signers "talk math" is rather hard, since the
> > syntax of english expression is quite thoroughly replaced with the
> > spatial syntax of ASL. (Of course, understanding number speech is one
> > of the later fluencies one gains when learning any foreign
> > language). I have never seen vector calculus or group theory
> > interpreted, but it wouldn't surprise me if the difficulty we have
> > rendering written equations, or even diagrams, in english speech is
> > substantially reduced in ASL.

Mmmmm... commutative diagrams in ASL, anyone?

Igor

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