LL-L "Sign language" 2011.05.02 (02) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 02 May 2011 - Volume 02
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From: Mike Morgan <mwmbombay at gmail.com>

Subject: LL-L "Sign language" 2011.05.01 (04) [EN]


お早うはん！

Pat asked (half-seriosuly?):

 > Wouldn't the Japanese sign language leave little traces of hiragana in
> the air?
>
And Sandy replied:

>  Yes, because of the fingerspelling.
>

Well, as the resident expert of Japanese Sign language, actually, the
fingerspelling is DIFFERENT from the tracing in the air. While a few of the
"letters" are in fact fingerspelled by tracing in the air (though in
KATAkana, not HIRAgana), there is ALSO a practice of literally tracing in
the air (called sky-writing 空書き), and that can be not only hiragana, but
also kanji... (and of course less often, but when appropriate, Katakana)

Typically though, in one to one communication for tracing kanji (as in
replying to the question: "how do you write your name?) the Japanese Deaf
person traces the kanji on their palm (so I would trace 茂流岸 on my palm:
mo-ru-gan). In the context of a larger audience, palm writing doesn't work,
so then I would trace exactly the same kanji in large "letters" in the air
(probably also giving a kanji-for-kanji meaning translation in JSL:
"lush-green flowing shore").

namaste!

mwm || U C > || mike || мика  || माईक || マイク || மாய்க் (aka Dr Michael W
Morgan)

Senior Consultant
BA in Applied Sign Language Studies (BAASLS)
Indira Gandhi National Open Univeristy
New Delhi, India

"Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we
excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered
dreams of others. ... [T]here is another kind of violence, slower but just
as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the
violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay." (Bobby
Kennedy, 5 April 1968)

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