how to signwrite scorpion - here : reading and writing in foreign SL

[Susanne Bentele]

Hi Stefan and all -

>Looking at the ASL  spellings there are very seldom mouthgestures like
>these. One reason may be that ASL does not include as much mouthgesture as
>DGS - mmh -
>Another reason may be that contrary to DGS ASL has a more sophisticated and
>elaborated sign-system so that not too many terms of the spoken language are
>covered by one sign ????

First of all: I think it's great that we can send such "long"
documents; - even I, who still hasn't gotten around to learning SW,
can get the gist of the message, because there's always enough
context to deduce meaning from... :-) ...Gives me another boost to
finally learn it properly!

Secondly: from my informal observations I would not think that ASL is
more sophisticated or elaborate than other sign languages, at least
not it the mentioned respect. My observation is that, in cases where
there could be confusion of the kind that is disambiguated in DGS
mostly through mouthing, ASL makes much more use of fingerspelling
and/or initialized signs. This, just like mouthing in DGS, gives the
context as to what "word" is referred to.

My thoughts for today :-)
Best, Susanne
..