LL-L "Orthography" 2005.05.13 (09) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 13.MAY.2005 (09) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: "Orthography" [E]

> From: Mike Morgan <Mike.Morgan at mb3.seikyou.ne.jp>
> Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2005.05.12 (10) [E]
>
> BUT, the REAL problem, in the eyes of THIS linguist who sees a VALID
> distinction between phonology and phonetics, is that since then (1960)
> most
> (need I say mainly Generative) analysts have "generated" multiples upon
> multiples of that number of "phonemes" (Liddell and Scott said, back in
> the
> late 80's, stated that ASL had "_at least_" (MWM: emphasis  added) 150
> hand
> configurations. Likewise with the other classes or phonemes. I would
> guess,
> though, that EVEN Liddell and Scott would not claim -emic status for all
> 150+ hand configurations.

150 seems excessive. The Words in Hand cheat-sheet for BSL lists 59, of
which I could imagine quite a few to be allophonic. Mind you, I can think of
at least one handshape which has entered the language since this book was
written!

However, you completely miss certain channels such as the face and
shoulders - this is, to me, the biggest weakness of Hamnosys, though I
believe they're working on it. It's also one of several things that make me
suspicious of the idea of writing any literature in this notation - where by
literature I mean stuff that gets read, not just stuff that gets written  :)

> As for SLs being "not so highly coded", I'm not sure I understand exactly
> what Sandy means ... but if I do, I probably disagree (I AM, after all,
> part
> Irish!)

You're thinking of orthography, I didn't mean this. I meant the languages as
"spoken" not as written.

For example, there's little relationship between the sounds in the English
"I walked to the shops" and the picture being described. An English
dictionary (or English-speaker's brain) acts as a code book saying that
"walk" is code for movement on foot etc. All the words are coded, and the
grammar is strongly coded too. But in the BSL "shops me walk", a person only
needs to understand the use of certain classifiers which are then used to
diagram the actual real life occurrence. Of course there are many abstract
signs in BSL but even then their usage is not necessarily unrelated to the
abstract ideas they express.

I was just saying, to put it another way, that a "transparent" writing
system like SignWriting may be more natural for sign languages simply
because sign languages are more "transparent" than oral languages.

> both share MUCH in common (despite what I may have written in an article
> soon to hit the presses here in Japan; I contradict myself? Very well, I
> contradict myself!)

As I said in the earlier posting, the literature tends to emphasis
similarities, but I suspect the differences are more important.

> Yes, and a point I'm not sure that Sandy has made (Yet!), but one which is
> CERTAINLY on his side, is that if you count the numbers of Deaf people,
> linguist or not, that have preferences for one system of orthography or
> another, and I suspect (though I missed the poll results) that they DO
> tend
> to favor a "graphemic" system. Until my hearing gets just a bit worse than

It would be interesting to know about which writing systems involve more
culturally deaf people than others. My impression is that both Stokoe and
Hamnosys are screamingly "hearing" contraptions. For someone like me who has
such a strong dependency on BSL that I use it for almost all fluent
communication on a daily basis, I immediately see the inadequacies in these
systems - though admittedly this is mainly due to them simply ignoring
certain channels of communication - ie they could be fixed. On the other
hand, the idea of adding a head/face channel to Hamnosys really makes you
wonder - I mean, like it isn't verbose enough? In SignWriting this is
simple.

Don't get me wrong - if you read the SignWriting mailing list you'll
probably agree that I'm the biggest devil's advocate on the list - and I'm
not just "playing" at Devil's advocate! I feel that users need to loosen up
in some areas and sharpen up in others. But it's still the only writing
system that can fully express BSL as I speak it.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

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