LL-L 'Language varieties' 2007.01.26 (10) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L - 27 January 2007 - Volume 10

=========================================================================

From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L 'Language varieties' 2007.01.26 (06) [E]

Hi, Sandy,

you passed a lot of interesting facts- e.g.:

> As for the ages of sign languages, well, judging by the some of the
> responses so far, I suppose you may be surprised to hear that there are
> fully-fledged, indeed highly-developed sign languages that are only
> about 30 years old!

I have to confess- I always had been fascinated by people able to
communicate in Sign Language as fast and clear as audio-able ones can. But
though you often wrote about these matters I didn't take care very much.
Meanwhile you're opening an eye for me.

In Germany we have a TV-channel which translates all news-transmissions into
SL- simultaneously, and additional a lot of trivial things, too.. It is of
course an ‚öffentlich-rechtlich' institution, just meaning: controlled by
the government and not private.

I meanwhile- from time to time- watch this one, sent in ‚normal' speech and
in a small window additional on the screen in Sign Language. For me it's
nearly impossible to imagine how long people have to be educated to learn
it- regarding professional translators in special whom I guess to be fully
audi*a*ble by birth.

So, my question: how long have you to be trained to learn a modern,
‚adapted', grammatizised SL which enables to use a word like G:
'Atomreaktor', E: 'atom reactor', and up to which age men and women are able
to learn it? As far as I remember you became deaf at an age, let me say, of
about 30 plus?! With the great advantage (??) that you had been able to hear
before...

Maybe it's of some interest: in my son's school there's offered the
possibility to learn some basical Sign Language as an additional lesson (not
examined), starting from the age of 13. Alternatively he could learn Dutch.
I'd prefer SL at the moment, because Dutch could *spoil* my son's Low Saxon.
His Dutch lessons have to come later, perhaps at times when his LS-skills
are good enough to recognize bad dictionaries and some more of my own
*favorite* enemies... ;-)! You've heard of families' traditons, *clan's
feuds* ;-)...?

Things are strange, sometimes...

Greutens/Regards

Johannes "Jonny" Meibohm

----------

From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L 'Language varieties' 2007.01.27 (03) [E]

 Dear Sandy

Subject: LL-L 'Language varieties'

My experience doesn't march with yours here. I can't speak for "Plains Talk"
but Bushman Hunting sign is fast & concise, there is really no leisure on a
hunt on this continent. Nearly all the prey is either aggressive or
thick-skinned. If you want meat, you don't waste time. If you don't want to
BE meat, there is even more pressing motivation for speed of communication.

I know, for example, you want to be able to communicate direction, quantity,
type, temper & surroundings of your prey or predator to others in line of
sight over long distances. Hunters with Bushman gillies simply hunt more
successfully & in greater safety than those without, because of ongoing
information in real-time about the quarry, the wind, & the vegetation among
a host of other factors.

One more thing: I come from a polyglot country. I find that far from pushing
the second language in the background, one language is a spur to equivalence
at least in the other. You have expectations of the secondary tongue, not
so? Back to those less than saintly Brothers in their monastries: They
needed to be able to say the same things by gesture that they were forbidden
to in speech, right?

That Bushman boy, he could sign how he felt, say what he wanted, & was no
less willingly sent on errends by his elders than his hearing-unchallanged
fellows. I couldn't understand of course, but he approached my Bushman
corporal with a very specific request from his mother, for a 500ml bottle of
extra-stong chilli sauce, & a South African brand, not the Portuguese (it
would, of course, be fresher), & to take it off his father's ration
scale. He gestured using his right fingers, hand & arm & occasionally his
face. Can you do that in "Plains Talk?"

Yrs,
Mark
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20070127/13302827/attachment.htm>