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Mark brings up an important consideration, English hegemony. An additional issue arises when one is working on a language that doesn't use an alphabet, be it Roman or Cyrillic. In recent years while working on the sign language of Japan, I've been referring to it as NS, for NihonSyuwa, following the request of a deaf Japanese linguist. Unfortunately, I had previously referred to it in print as JSL, as have a number of other scholars. Furthermore, according to my correspondence with other scholars in Asia, the sign languages of Taiwan, China, and Korea are referred to in English respectively as TSL, CSL, and KSL. I think a case can be made for using these abbreviations, as well as JSL, due to the fact that the surrounding spoken languages don't use an alphabet (Korean does use a kind of syllabary), Japanese, for example, would use 日本手話, which some people on this list probably can't even see, and which can't really be straightforwardly abbreviated in Roman letters.<br><div><div>On Sep 4, 2007, at 7:27 AM, Mark A. Mandel wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"Lorraine Leeson" <<a href="mailto:leesonl@gmail.com">leesonl@gmail.com</a>><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>wrote:</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> <blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">But why do the acronyms need to be transparent?? This doesn't seem to</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">be a necessary condition of naming!</div> </blockquote><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">As someone else has said, codes are codes and don't need to be memorable.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">But there's a reason that, say, my university ID has a name form (mamandel)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">as well as a number. If you're reading a comparative paper on, say, namesign<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">forms in SLs around the world, do you want to have to keep a cheat sheet<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">handy to know which one each code refers to? I don't.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">And as for the other complaint, that these terms are English-based: We are<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">writing here in English. If I read a Russian paper on spoken languages, I<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">would have no right to complain that (transliterated) "nemeckii" doesn't<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">resemble the English word "Hungarian" -- or, for that matter, the Hungarian<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">word "Magyar" (acute accent on the 2nd "a"). Codes are not language-based,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">but names and abbreviations are. It would not be unfair for English-language<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">abbreviations (NOT codes!) for SLs to be English-based.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">But it would be polite for writers to introduce the abbreviations on first<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">use in a paper, as is typically done in biomedical text with abbreviations<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">for genes, proteins, diseases, and so on.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">m a m</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">SLLING-L mailing list</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="mailto:SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu">SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu</a></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l">http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l</a></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> </blockquote></div><br> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div><br></div></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span> </div><br></body></html>