<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">SignWriting List<div>August 25, 2008</div><div><br><div><div>Hasna Hocini in French-Canada wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">Hello!<br>I'm Dr. Zaremba's student, Hasna, and for our project, we need a document that can help us understand SignWriting symbols in detail.</blockquote><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Val:</div><div>Hello Hasna and Dr. Zaremba! Hope your project is doing well....and of course I am happy to help you learn SignWriting symbols.</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><br>I understood that there is no document yet to document all the ISWA symbols? is right?</blockquote><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Val:</div><div>The International SignWriting Alphabet (ISWA 2008) is in beta right now, as you know. It has not been released yet, in its "official form". We are not yet using it, in SignPuddle. Right now SignPuddle 1.5, our current version, is using the IMWA, which is an older symbolset.</div><div><br></div><div>All of the SignWriting symbols that we use right now in the IMWA, will also be in the new ISWA, when the day comes that we "switch from the IMWA to the ISWA", and the conversion will be automatic. The documents that you already have written in SignWriting, will look just the same, but working with the new ISWA design will make finding the symbols easier, and there will be more symbols that are needed to write SignWriting around the world...</div><div><br></div><div>So of course we have not finished the new documentation of the new ISWA, since the ISWA itself is not finished yet! One step at a time.</div><div><br></div><div>Meanwhile, you are using the IMWA right now, and we have plenty of documentation for the current symbols. I am happy to help you learn the symbols.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite">We found those documents on the web for the IMWA symbols:<br><br>sw0008-About-SignWriting.pdf<br>sw0116-Lessons-SignWriting.pdf<br>Lessons-SignWrit-2002.pdf<br>SignSpelling-2004<br>sw0147-sss2004-Category1.pdf ... sw0147-sss2004-Category8.pdf<br>sw0158-sss2004-50-Groups<br>sw0190-IMWA-Categories</blockquote><div><br></div><div>Val:</div><div>Those are very good choices, especially the sw0116-Lessons-SignWriting.pdf</div><div><br></div><div>That is the "Lessons in SignWriting Textbook". Did you know you can read the book in French and French-Swiss Sign Language? Many thanks to Anny in French-Switzerland, for these wonderful documents in French:</div><div><br></div><div><b>Lessons in SignWriting in French</b></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><a href="http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/lessonsw/French.html">http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/lessonsw/French.html</a></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">So I would suggest reading the books and literature found on the above web page.</span></font></div></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite">But, we need to learn more about the SignWriting symbols... The detailed meaning of each symbol. specially category 5, 6 and 7 : <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dynamics</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Punctuations </span>and <span style="font-weight: bold;">advanced sorting.</span></blockquote><div><br></div>Val:</div><div>Sure. I will be happy to teach you Dynamics and Punctuation.</div><div><br></div><div><br><blockquote type="cite">Do you have please any document that can help us more?</blockquote><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Val:</div><div>Yes. In the Lessons in SignWriting Textbook (English version) (sw0116-Lessons-SignWriting.pdf), go to:</div><div><br></div><div>Chapter 13: Dynamics</div><div>Chapter 14: Punctuation</div><div><br></div><div>If you have more questions specifically as to what a sign means, with those symbols, attach a picture of the sign you cannot read to an email message and send it to the List with your specific question...</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite">And in the SignSpelling-2004 document, it is said that <span style="font-weight: bold;">location Markers</span> are for <span style="font-weight: bold;">research </span>use. Can you tell us please which research has worked on that markers?</blockquote><br></div><div>The Location marker for research use are the SAME as the "advanced sorting" category in the new ISWA. We are just calling them "Advanced Sorting" now...</div><div><br></div><div>We do not write signs with these Advanced Sorting symbols....they are solely for placing detailed information to improve the accuracy of sorting dictionaries by SignWriting symbols...sometimes two signs can have the same SignSpelling, except for one tiny difference...maybe one sign has the hand slightly higher than the other sign. We can see that difference when we write, by simply placing the handshape a little higher in the sign, and the reader reads that visually without needing any special information...it is read quickly and simply. But when the computer wants to sort these two signs by Sign-Symbol-Sequence, the height-difference needs to be stated for the computer to know which one comes first and which one should come second in the dictionary, so these Advanced Sorting symbols, such as Height Location, are used in the computerized SignSpelling Sequence data to state which one comes first and which one comes second in the listing of signs of SignSymbols...</div><div><br></div><div>This has nothing to do with Translation work between languages...the Advanced Sorting symbols are ONLY used for sorting dictionaries by Sign Symbols...</div><div><br></div><div>I hope this helped -</div><div><br></div><div>Val ;-)</div></div></body></html>