<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">SignWriting List<DIV>November 21, 2006</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV>Jason Hopkins wrote:</DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"> I tend to follow this order:</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"><BR style=""></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD">Head, Face</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD">Shoulders</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD">Hand shape, Orientation</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD">Movement Direction, Arrow Choice</FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Hello Jason and everyone -</DIV><DIV>Interesting topic. Thanks for bringing it up!</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Your sequence of writing listed below is very close to my natural order of writing too...There is history behind this that might be interesting to you...The reason it is natural to think of the Head and Face first, is threefold...First, facial expressions are powerfully important to all signed languages...second...there is oftentimes contact with the head and face and writing the location where the contact will occur provides a natural center to the sign...and third, the Head and Face are at the top of the body, and writing down in vertical columns is more natural to writing signed languages, because our bodies are vertical...so starting at the top of the body, and writing down is what you are doing naturally, and I believe that is the natural flow of writing...</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>some reasons why people write top to bottom...</DIV><DIV>1. facial expressions are important</DIV><DIV>2. the face establishes the center of the sign</DIV><DIV>3. writing from top to bottom flows naturally with our vertical bodies</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>There is another related history about this fact, in relation to the Sign-Symbol-Sequence, the IMWA. The symbols are placed in 8 Categories as you know:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>1 Hand</DIV><DIV>2 Movement</DIV><DIV>3 Face</DIV><DIV>4 Head</DIV><DIV>5 Upper-Body</DIV><DIV>6 Full-Body</DIV><DIV>7 Space</DIV><DIV>8 Time & Punctuation</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Although these categories determine how dictionaries are sorted by Sign-Symbol-Sequence, and technically have nothing to do with which order you personally choose to write in, there is still a connection to what might be taught someday in schools....</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Originally, back when I was first developing the Sign-Symbol-Sequence, I had planned on using this Sequence:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Head</DIV><DIV>Face</DIV><DIV>Upper-Body</DIV><DIV>Hand</DIV><DIV>Movement</DIV><DIV>Time</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>This means that you would not be looking signs up by handshapes in dictionaries! You would be looking up by Facial Expressions...and because signers wanted to look-up by handshapes, I changed the sequence to what we have today...</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>So this means that the writing-sequence you are talking about, is not completely in coordination with the way we look-up signs by Sign-Symbol-Sequence...</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>This means that writing SignWriting is different than writing spoken languages with the Roman alphabet...because when we write English words, we are writing in the sequence of the look-up order...but in SignWriting, we would have to write starting with handshapes to write in the look-up order...</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>But it feels better, as you say, to start with the Face and Head...so I understand!!</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>So I have been experimenting lately, just to see if I could write in the look-up order of the Sign-Symbol-Sequence by writing the handshapes first and then writing the rest of the sign... sometimes I can do it well, and other times it does not feel natural, but I am still experimenting to see if it could be taught to write starting with handshapes...I suspect we need to leave that to the individual writer!</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Val ;-)</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>---------</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>Jason Hopkins wrote:</DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> I tend to follow this order:</SPAN></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; ">Head, Face</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Shoulders</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Hand shape, Orientation</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Movement Direction, Arrow Choice</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; ">I don't follow this like a checklist, it just happens to be the order I use when constructing a SW image.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Some symbols are clearly not needed for a specific sign in order to convey full meaning, so I don't worry about them.</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; ">For example, when I create the SW image for "ponder", I first think to myself, in this case I need a head ad a face.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>On the face I need eyebrows and a mouth.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>I don't even think about not needing shoulders, it doesn't even come up.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>I then determine the hand shape and orientation, and where to put them in relation to the face.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Then I think about movement direction and what arrows will best show it.</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; ">I'm curious, is this the type of thought process that others use?<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Do you use this order or something different?</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; ">-Jason Hopkins</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>