[sw-l] Sign Variants via SWML

Dan Parvaz dparvaz at MAC.COM
Mon Oct 18 21:23:50 UTC 2004


> If it were me, I'd probably decide that "flatfish" is something that some
> signers, especially learners, might not think of, and it's worth entering
> into the dictionary to help him see, by loading "fish" and requesting to see
> all its variants, that this is an alternative he shouldn't forget about. If
> he really wants to show the flatfish upside down he'll know this and can
> adjust the orientation, I'd say, so I wouldn't bother with that particular
> variant unless I had a remit to make the dictionary as big as I possibly
> could!

Sounds like an example in LSF I heard from Christian Cuxac. In a certain
region of France, dactylology  never really took hold, so the names of the
days of the week are not the typical initialized equivalents. The sign for
"Friday" looks a lot like your flatfish, and for a very good reason:
that's when they had fish at the school for the Deaf. So, clearly iconic
and related to "fish," only quite a different sense from the original.

-Dan.



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