Is Sign Language a Language? (long)

Philocophus Philocophus at PHILOCOPHUS.DEMON.CO.UK
Sun May 4 08:35:51 UTC 2003


Dear Kathy,

Thank you for taking time to respond as obviously you have better things to
do than to listen to the mail!

1. "Oxbridge" is an English (UK) word denoting Oxford University and
Cambridge University. That is all.

2. The idea of segregation was entirely concocted in her mind - she used it
to justify her arguments against the use of signs.

3. BSL (British Sign Language -as I am from Britain). she got all the idea
from reading Merlin Donald's "Precis of Origins of the Modern mind: Three
Stages in the Evolution of Cutlure and Cognition" (1997). A precis of is
work can be viewed on
ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/.WWW/bbs.donald.html website.

4. Her reference to "sign languages that do not have signed English are
mimetic" was again inspired by Merlin Donald's work described above. It is
mentioned in the precis.

5. Again, any reference that she seems to know about Homo Erectus,
chimpanzee and further insistences that sign language is purely gestural and
purely mimetic should be directed to Merlin Donald's book -again, and again
and again....

6. The idea that sign language is pantomime is her own - based on Merlin
Donald's book, of course! She is perhaps giving him a bad reputation which
he may or may not deserve!

7. Thank you for assuring me that you all are not laughing at me. From the
very first instance, I knew she was merely insulting me.

8. For any reference to the remarks about "devloped the ability and the
brain structure to communicate in double articulation human-only
languages" - go to poor Merlin Donald's book mentioned here!

9. She has an etic perspective, yet thinks she has an emic one! Her partner
is deaf, a very nice and admirable person.

10. She has the word "phonemic" tattoed all over her. It is her favourite
word.

11. Cochlea implants - I agree with your comments. In Britain, a large
proportion of deaf people benefit from it, but there is a good number of
those to whom the implant failed. Interestingly, the hospital refused to
perform operations to remove them!

I have ended my corresppondences with the lady becaue I have better things
to do than to be insulted in mail after mail. I am truly grateful to
everyone in this group for all the help, explanations and clarifications on
the status of sign language as a language. I hope many of you will read
Merlin Donald's book mentioned here if only to back up your knowledge, but I
note from his precis on the website ... his own words:

"This book was an attempt to synthesize various sources of
information--neurobiological, psychological, archeological and
anthropological, among others--about our cognitive origins, in the belief
that the human mind co-evolved in close interaction with both brain and
culture. I should make clear from the start that I have no illusions about
my ability to become expert in all of the disciplines touched on by this
enterprise; accordingly my effort should be regarded with suspicion by all;
at best, it will probably prove to be no more than a guide to some of the
important questions that remain to be settled. This precis focuses on my
core theory and disregards most of the background material reviewed at
length in the book itself. "

Put it in a nutshell - a work based on, for want of a better word,
"opinion"? Yet this lady cited him many times in her PhD and keeps referring
to Donald's work as "scientifically researched and proven" facts!

Regards

Raymond Lee

Head of Research & Publications
British Deaf History Society
London, UK.

Philocophus at philocophus.demon.co.uk

*****************************************************
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathy H." <kaylynnkathy at HOTMAIL.COM>
To: <SLLING-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA>
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2003 3:16 AM
Subject: Re: Is Sign Language a Language? (long)


> Dear Raymond,
>
> I would like to make some responses to your posting to the list.  First of
> all, I commend you for contacting the list for help.  I think it was a
> prudent thing to do.  Second of all, do not let one person   opinions
> prevent you from recognizing sign languages as true languages.
>
> You made the comment about ensuring that sign language is   narguably a
> language m    Obviously, someone is arguing against it!  However, that
doesn
> mean anything about the validity of the arguments or about the truth of
the
> status of sign languages.
>
> So you have some idea of who is writing this, I have an M.A. in
Linguistics
> and a certificate to teach English as a second language from the
University
> of Florida.  I am currently a Ph.D. student at Purdue University, majoring
> in Linguistics, specifically phonology.  I will be writing my dissertation
> on a particular aspect of sign language phonology.  At this point, let me
> say that I have a list of signs which are starting to show a structural
> pattern within the language.  Whether this is enough for you to listen to
> me, I don   know.
>
> I would like to respond to some of the lady   comments.  (I >  responding
in
> the same order as your e-mail.)
>
> Language does not have to be based on sounds of human speech.  As the lady
> says later on, language is in the brain.
>
> I >  not sure why the lady is insisting on Oxbridge.  Is Oxbridge an   ral
> only m  type of institution?  Are cochlear implants performed at Oxbridge?
>
> --[THE DEAF COMMUNITY WILL NEVER ACHIEVE "EQUALITY" WITH HEARING PEOPLE IF
> THEY CONTINUE TO SEGREGATE, ISOLATE AND EXCLUDE THEMSELVES FROM GENERAL
> CULTURE AND GENERAL SOCIETY AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE]
>
> Sub-cultures exist in society.  If the deaf or Deaf community is
> segregating, isolating, and excluding themselves from general culture and
> general society, it is no different from any other sub-culture.  Sometimes
> we partake of the general culture, and sometimes we partake of our
> sub-cultures.  We are multi-faceted people who adjust to our surroundings,
> including adjusting our forms of communication.  Many languages have
> different phonetic forms to express this, such as the French   ous m  vs.
>   u m    Immigrants and foreigners switch languages depending on the
situation
> at hand.  The deaf/Deaf are behaving like hearing people in this regard.
>
> I am not aware of the deaf community segregating, isolating, and excluding
> itself from the English language.  Instead, they are doing the sensible
> thing:  choosing to communicate in the easiest way.  When I want to
> communicate with a hearing person who is standing next to me, I don
write
> notes.  We use our voices.  Why?  It   easier.  It   faster.  We don
lose
> prosodic information (intonation, emotion).  That is, it   more accurate.
> For people who can   hear or can   hear well, signing can convey more
> information than spoken forms and can do it more accurately.  Also, with
> deaf individuals, when I have brought up the topic of writing American
Sign
> Language, some have wondered why they would need that since they write in
> English.  That isn   exclusion.
>
> -- [THEY ARE NOT TELLING THE GOVERNMENT THAT BSL IS A METHOD OF
> COMMUNICATION SIMILAR TO THAT WHICH WAS USED BY HOMO ERECTUS PRIOR TO THE
> DEVELOPMENT OF SPEECH BY HOMO SAPIENS.]
>
> The lady writes as if she knows what form of communication homo erectus
used
> prior to speech.  This information is not available for us to discover,
> inspect, or know.
>
> Sign languages are based on underlying phonemic codes.  If they were
merely
> pantomime, a person untrained in its use would be able to understand it,
> just as one can watch a mime and understand the message.  However, this is
> not the case with sign languages.  An untrained person cannot watch sign
> language and understand it.  A trained person who is a non-native signer
> will still miss nuances, just as foreigners do not understand the nuances
of
> English.
>
> --[THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN "INDIGENOUS SIGN LANGUAGE" BECAUSE OVER
90%
> OF DEAF PEOPLE ARE BORN TO HEARING PARENTS AND HEARING FAMILIES.]
>
> This leaves the other 10% or so to acquire sign language as infants--as a
> natural language.
>
> --[IT WOULD BE MUCH BETTER TO IMPROVE ACCESS TO ENGLISH FOR DEAF
> INDIVIDUALS, NOT ACCESS TO THEIR OWN LANGUAGE OF BSL FOR WHICH THEY DO NOT
> NEED ANY "IMPROVED ACCESS."]
>
> If the lady were among only deaf people who were communicating only in
BSL,
> she would need an interpreter if she wanted to understand the topics of
> discussion.  (Note that she called BSL a language.)
>
> --What you learned, dear Philocophus, is the underlying phonetic-phonemic
> CODE of the English language, the basis for all human language. What you
use
> in your own everyday life is SIGNED English communication, because
language
> is in your brain, not "on your hands."
>
> Language is in the brain, not on the hands.  Very true.  Neither is it in
> the mouth.  Because language is in the brain, it does not matter the
> modality through which it is expressed.  It is still language.
>
> --The FACT is that the professional field of linguistics does not, and
never
> has, "recognized" a PURELY mimetic-visual form of communication as a
> "language."
>
>   ommunication m  is not exactly the same as  _ anguage m    Cats, dogs,
and
> horses communicate yet they are not using true language.  If communication
> and language were the same, then pantomime, which is a form of
> communication, would be a language.
>
> --The word "language" is derived from the Latin "lingua," meaning
"tongue."
>
> Sign languages use the tongue.
>
> --Human beings switched over to LINGUISTIC processing about 30 million
years
> ago, when homo erectus died out and homo sapiensis appeared WITH THE
ABILITY
> TO SPEAK because of the sudden appearance of the hyoid bone in the human
> throat (to this day, no one knows how this happened, but it did  o  the
> current best explanation is in Genesis in the story of Adam and Eve).
>
> The lady writes this as if she knows: 1) that human beings switched over
to
> linguistic processing from something which wasn   linguistic; 2) that this
> switch occurred about 30 million years ago; 3) that homo erectus died out
> and homo sapiensis appeared about 30 million years ago; and 4) that the
> hyoid bone in the human throat appeared suddenly.  None of these can be
> proven or substantiated.  (Carbon dating is suspect.)  If her comment
about
> the best explanation being in the Genesis story is correct, then none of
> these are even true (except for the hyoid bone appearing suddenly which
> would have occurred when God created man from the dust of the ground).
>
> --In terms of "deaf people," THEY ALL HAVE the reserved area in their
brains
> for human speech-sound-based (phonetic-phonemic) language.
>
> The auditory portion of the brain in hearing people is activated by sign
> language in deaf people.  (See neurolinguistic work by Neville.)
>
> --HOWEVER, THEY CAN BE TAUGHT THE PHONETIC-PHONEMIC CODE ON WHICH THAT
> LANGUAGE IS BASED. And after they learn that code, they TRANSITION from
> being an "ape" to a HUMAN BEING.
>
> They never were   pes m    To all the deaf/Deaf people who read the lady
> words, I apologize for the inference and comparison concerning apes.  A
> human being is a human being, regardless of individual differences in
> ability to hear, to see, to walk, to think, etc.
>
> --BSL, just like "ASL" DOES NOT HAVE an underlying phonetic-phonemic code.
> It is PURELY gestural and PURELY mimetic.
>
> This is not true, Raymond.  If ASL and BSL were purely gestural and
mimetic,
> the lady would be able to understand it.  If it were true, I myself would
be
> able to understand everything that my deaf/Deaf colleagues were
esturing,
>  m
> yet I don   because I don   understand the grammatical aspects, the
> adverbial modifiers, the marking of conditionals and relative clauses, the
> tense markers, which are all there; I just can   grasp them all in a
> conversation, just as spoken language second language learners cannot
grasp
> everything that is spoken.  Signing is not pantomime.  It has structure.
>
> --It is the kind of communication you engaged in, and which ALL human
beings
> engage in, before they fully learn the phonetic-phonemic code of their
> community's HUMAN language. [Why do you think chimpanzees can function in
> "sign language" but can never learn the phonetic-phonemic code of HUMAN
> languages?]
>
> This is not true, either.  If it were true, then there would be no
> difference in the gestures between infants/toddlers and the sign language
of
> deaf adults.
>
> I >  not sure what is meant by chimpanzees   unctioning m  in sign
language.  I
> do, however, know someone who was part of a project using sign language
with
> a gorilla.  This person, according to my understanding, quit the project
> because the gorilla wasn   really signing a language; that is, there was a
> difference between the signing of the gorilla and the signing of deaf
> people.
>
> --Now, if you WISH TO REMOVE the entire phonetic-phonemic code of the
human
> language of English that is in your brain, then I invite you to do so,
> before you assert that PURELY gestural-mimetic communication is some kind
of
> "language" recognized by professional linguists. In fact, that form of
> communication is a "First Articulation Only" form of human communication
> that is ONLY "recognized" by the field of Semiotics.
>
> Deaf patients with Parkinson   disease and deaf patients with aphasia have
> been studied.  The results compare with hearing people and their language
> disorders.  (See work by Poizner, Emmorey, others)
>
> --You and the other people in the deaf community in Britain are
> misunderstanding some very important things, and transmitting
misinformation
> to government officials who have no idea what is going on.
>
> What is the lady   motive?  Does she work for a cochlear implant company?
> Does she teach cued speech?  Is she bitter against linguists because she
> prefers semiotics?
>
> --ENGLISH can be spoken, heard, read, and written. It can also be
> represented in many other ways, such as in semaphore, fingerspelling,
> alphabetic characters, lipreading (speechreading), Cued English, Braille,
> and a HUGE number of codes. BUT, language is IN YOUR BRAIN, not on the
> surface and not in the "codes" you may be seeing, feeling, or otherwise
> perceiving.
>
> If English can be represented in many other ways, including signed
English,
> then signing is a valid mode of linguistic expression (since English is
> linguistic).  French and Mandarin can also be represented in writing and
in
> other non-vocal ways.  This means that the mode of representation does not
> determine the language.  Signing, then, as a valid mode of linguistic
> expression, does not have to be English.  It could be another language.
It
> could be ASL or BSL or JSL (Japan) or SLN (The Netherlands) or any of the
> sign languages around the world.  If language is in the head, then its
form
> of expression does not determine its "languageness".
>
> --You, Raymond, have that code stored PERMANENTLY in your own brain, in
the
> reserved section for human language, and you use that code all the time to
> produce words, grammar and syntax. Once that code is in the brain of a
human
> being, it cannot be removed or erased.
>
> Since no one knows the details and specifics of language in the brain, it
> seems premature to state that it cannot be erased.  Aphasia and other
> language problems do occur.
>
> --That is why apes can learn BSL, but they can't learn English.
>
> I think that the person I know who was involved in the gorilla project
would
> disagree with apes learning sign language.
>
> --What you are "thinking" about is wrong. You are forgetting the fact that
> the ONLY REASON any deaf person anywhere "needs signs" is that the person
is
> unable to lipread every person on Earth accurately, and the person has no
> ability to supplement their lipreading with auditory information. [Those
who
> DO have that ability -- hard of hearing people -- (the VAST majority of
the
> hearing impaired community) obviously don't need and don't use any kind of
> "sign-assistance" to communicate with anyone else].
>
> Perhaps the lady can explain to me why I know hard-of-hearing people who
use
> sign language.
>
> --In the 1960s and thereafter, and ONLY IN THE UNITED STATES, and starting
> ONLY AT A PLACE THAT IS NOT A REGULAR UNIVERSITY,
>
> What is a   egular m  university?  Actually, I believe Gallaudet was only
a
> college at that time.
>
> --There has never been any such verification, proof or evidence of any
such
> thing. There is also no such thing as "ASL Linguistics" or "BSL
Linguistics"
> or any other relationship between "Linguistics" and the non-English
> (non-spoken language) forms of "pure visual-gestural-mimetic signing."
>
> Raymond, I am studying ASL linguistics.  There is such a thing.  I also
> believe that the relationship between spoken languages and sign languages
is
> much closer than perhaps previously considered.
>
> --Now, Raymond, go see some "professional Linguists" and give them this
> email message and ask them to read it.
>
> (Here is your permission to send her e-mail to the list.)
>
> Why does the lady insist on preferring Oxbridge?  What is there about
> Oxbridge that we ought to know?  I  e never heard of Oxbridge.
>
> --Ask your professional Linguists in Britain whether PANTOMIME is
> "recognized" in the field of Linguistics as a "language."
>
> This is irrelevant because sign language is not based on pantomime.
>
> -- And after the professional Linguists stop laughing at you,
>
> We are not laughing at you.  Your questions and concerns are valid.  It is
> with pleasure that we share with you what we know about sign language and
> its status as a true language.
>
> --then ask them WHEN (what point in time in human history) ALL human
beings
> designated as homo sapiens (including "deaf" homo sapiens) developed the
> ability and the brain structure to communicate in DOUBLE ARTICULATION
> HUMAN-ONLY languages such as English.
>
> Nobody knows the answer to this question, not even the lady.
> (unless one goes back to Genesis, in which case it might be about six
> thousand years ago)
>
> --[Since when is a DICTIONARY an academic linguistics publication? (and it
> is wrong, since signs ARE IN MOTION and cannot be accurately depicted in a
> printed "dictionary.")
>
> Just because signs are in motion does not mean that they cannot be
depicted
> accurately in print.  We seem to capture enough acoustic information in
> print that we are able to decode written messages, although this is not
> exactly what we  e doing.  We are not encoding in print the speech signal,
> which includes pitch variations and devoicing and aspiration, etc., which
> are not represented in the written version.  English encodes
morpho-phonemic
> information which is sufficient for the message to be decoded by a native
> user of the language.  This is certainly possible, then, for sign
languages
> as well.
>
> It is more reasonable to take three-dimensional visual signals (sign
> language) and convert them into two-dimensional visual print than it is to
> take three-dimensional acoustic signals (spoken language) and convert them
> into two-dimensional visual print.  At least with sign language, the
visual
> modality remains the visual modality.  Writing spoken languages is done
> across modalities (auditory to visual).  Yet the latter occurs every day.
> Therefore, the former is also possible.
>
> Attempts have been made at writing sign language, but from what I
understand
> of them, they have not been based on a solid linguistic foundation for the
> language.  [This is an area (writing sign language) that I >  interested
in
> continuing once I have finished graduate school.]
>
> If a sign language dictionary is   rong m  because signs are in motion and
> cannot be accurately depicted in print, then spoken language dictionaries
> are wrong because acoustic waveforms are in motion, which is, after all,
how
> spoken languages are conveyed, and moving waveforms cannot be depicted in
> print.
>
> --Wilbur, Ronnie B. 1987. American Sign Language: Linguistic and applied
> dimensions. Boston: Little Brown and Co. [Hearing, Interpreter, BIASED,
> using the deaf community for his own income and status]
>
> Raymond, the lady doesn   know what she is talking about.  She does not
know
> Ronnie   interpreting abilities, her biases or lack thereof, her
> relationship with the deaf community, etc.  She also apparently doesn
know
> that Ronnie is a   he m  and not a   e m
>
> Okay, I concede:  Ronnie IS hearing.  :)
>
> I >  not sure how the comments the lady makes justify   hrowing out m  the
> research.  There are times when a person   work can be discredited, but a
> statement such as   fter Gallaudet University was forced to shut down
their
> propaganda center called Gallaudet University Press, these people began to
> publish through Cambridge University Press m  is not related to the
results of
> research.  It is not the publisher who conducts the research.  A budget
> constraint can   orce m  a shut down.  This is not relevant to the
research
> results, and it does not negate them.
>
> --1.) Is this individual prelingually deaf? If not, she has an "etic"
> (outside, surface) not an "emic" (inside, real) perspective.
>
> This is why linguists conduct field work.  This is why a good linguist
> develops a good relationship with native users of the language.  The
> linguist can see predictable patterns in the language which the native
user
> cannot perceive.  (Did you know that voiceless stops in English are
> aspirated when they occur at the beginning of stressed syllables, as in
>   at, m  but not when they occur in the onset of a stressed syllable that
> begins with [s], as in   pat m    A native English speaker is not aware of
the
> difference unless trained to hear it.)  The native user can give the   mic
m
> native perspective which the linguist does not have (unless it is the
> linguist   native language as well).  The two of them working together can
> provide good linguistic data and information.
>
> --3.) Can this individual independently determine whether a deaf person is
> using the sign-assisted lipread version of the ENGLISH language, or
whether
> the deaf individual is using the language of signs only?
>
> This is easy to do.  Signed versions of English differ in word order and
> tense and aspect marking and adverbial marking and syntactic clause
marking,
> etc., than ASL and BSL.
>
> --These "sign language researchers and linguists" are looking ONLY AT
SIGNS.
> They are not aware of how a deaf person is actually taught. They
completely
> ignore the fact that all of their "research subjects" have been taught the
> phonetic code of spoken language, at various levels of achievement.
>
> I >  not sure how this relates to the status of sign language as true
> language.  If I am taught the phonemic code of French at age 5 or 15, this
> is irrelevant to the status of English as a language.  Learning the
phonemic
> code of English is irrelevant to the status of BSL or ASL.
>
> Phonemic codes do not apply universally.  They are language specific.
>
> By learning a phonemic code early in life, one is better equipped to learn
a
> second or third phonemic code later.  It is important that a child start
> acquiring language early in life, regardless of what that language is.  It
> is important that a child HAVE a phonemic code before it is too late to
> acquire one.  Because teaching speech is such an arduous process, it is
> better for the deaf child to learn sign language while the language
> acquisition mechanisms are in order.  Adding a second language, such as
> English, is then helped because there is already a language in place.
> Children can acquire second languages easily enough, given adequate input.
> The delay for deaf children can be attributed to lack of adequate auditory
> input and vocal tract muscle control (probably due to a lack of auditory
> feedback).
>
> --They have NO IDEA that deaf individuals with high intelligence, such as
> you Raymond, are processing VERBAL language in their brains, even though
> these same individuals are using "signs" outwardly and on the surface.
>
> This is not relevant for the status of sign language as a true language.
I
> know a true ASL/English bilingual deaf person.  She is fourth generation
> Deaf.  She is fluent in ASL.  She is fluent in English (speech and
writing).
>   She forbids me to sign while I >  talking to her because she says there
is
> a conflict between the two modalities.
>
> Signed English doesn   work because the signing doesn   carry all of the
> information that spoken English does.  It   not actually a true linguistic
> system.  Pidgin signed English creates a conflict between the correct
> English and the grammatically incorrect pidgin signing.
>
> The earlier a complete linguistic system is acquired, the better the
chances
> are for the child   linguistic system to fully develop.  Adding, then, a
> second language (such as English) is easier than trying to learn a first
> language too late.
>
> --THESE "SIGN LANGUAGE LINGUISTS" ARE IN A PATTERN OF ADVOCATING FOR
> PRELINGUALLY DEAF INDIVIDUALS TO REMAIN IN A PRELINGUAL STATE... IN THEIR
> "NATURAL STATE" SO THEY CAN ALL BE "RESEARCHED."
>
> If one is interested in prelingual states, one studies infants.
>
> --Those who were properly taught, such as the students of Colin Sayer,
have
> extensive VERBAL language ability in their left cerebral hemisphere.
Those
> who were not properly taught have language deficits, and are partially
still
> PRELINGUISTIC.
>
> In order for something to be   roper, m  there must be a standard against
> which it is compared.  The implication is that some students have been
> improperly taught.  While this is possibly the case, it doesn   address
the
> issue of what is proper.  If normal hearing speech is the standard, then
> normal hearing children aren   taught properly at all; they acquire
language
> through natural developmental and maturational stages, as long as the
> linguistic input is adequate.  By definition, deaf children do not have
the
> same degree of linguistic input through auditory channels.  Hence, the
term
>   aught m  plays a role.  If deaf children must be taught to speak, this
is
> not the natural way to learn a language.  However, if such a child is
given
> adequate sign language input, he or she will acquire a linguistic system
> naturally.  English can be taught as a second language, building on the
> foundation of the child   first language.
>
> --10.) Ask this hearing "sign language linguist" what XXX is going to do
for
> a job in the future, when all deaf children receive cochlear implants
before
> age 1.
>
> Cochlear implants are used for only certain types of hearing loss.  Not
all
> deaf children are candidates for cochlear implants.
>
> --In the field of Linguistics, the term NATURAL LANGUAGE refers to spoken
> languages, such as English.
>
> Natural languages are languages that humans use that children acquire
> naturally, as opposed to written language, which is invented and taught,
not
> natural, or to computer languages, which are also man-made.
>
> --  NGLISH is definitely a "true linguistic language" even when it is
> lipread, and even when the lipreading is assisted by "signs." It is still
> the ENGLISH language.
>
> I sincerely doubt that a child could learn a language which was merely
> lipread with no other input.  Conduct a little test:  for 24 hours, you
and
> the people you  e with do not communicate with each other except through
> mouthing the words.  Carry on normal conversations this way.  Discuss
> abstract ideas.  It would be an interesting experiment.  Lipreading does
not
> involve an entire linguistic system.
>
> [Raymond wrote:]
> Is there a difference between the terms "sign language" and "signed
> language" which you use? If so, what is the difference from a linguist's
> persective?
>
> I >  not aware of any official use for the two terms.  I sometimes wonder
> which one to use.  I  e been leaning toward   ign language m  over   igned
> language m  because the latter can imply a language, such as English,
which is
> converted into manual signs.  Granted,   igned language m  parallels
poken
> language m  better.  I think that   ign language m  is becoming a compound
in my
> mind.
>
> Thank you for contacting this list for more information instead of basing
> your decisions on one person   opinions.  I hope that the replies you
> receive will be beneficial to you.
>
> Kathryn Hansen
>
> [More knowledgeable sign language linguists are welcome to comment on and
> make corrections to my statements.]
>
>
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