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<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial>Hi Trevor, Charles, Gerard,
Christophe, and everyone</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial> A Deaf
teacher and I have been working on a Sign Writing LSQ (a written LSQ) dictionary
for one month now. The Deaf teacher has been testing if Deaf children are
able to look up SW orders without alphabetic orders in the
dictionary.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial> It seems
that it works well because Deaf children who have difficulties to
</FONT></STRONG><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial>read a written
French can directly find a written LSQ to help them find a French word in the
dictionary.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial> Charles
mentioned that handshape orders are “index finger”, “index & middle finger”,
“index finger, middle, & thumb”, “four fingers”, “four fingers & thumb”,
“thumb & small finger”, “thumb & ring finger”, “thumb & index
finger”, and “thumb & fist”. I focus on “Index Finger”. You will see
the attached ISWA. The Index Finger has 13 different handshapes from ISWA
in the world. However, the Index Finger of the LSQ has only 5 different
handshapes.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial> In
addition, you will see the attached location orders. Location orders have
5 parts: 1) head & neck, 2) trunk & leg, 3) arm, 4) hand, 5) neutral
space. If you look up a written LSQ in the dictionary, you must think from
the high level of location to the low level of location. Contact symbols which
include touch, hit, rub and so forth interact with a specific area of the
body. If the hand or the finger touches the nose, you look up quickly a
head location order. For example, if a signer produces BELIEVE (ASL), the
index finger touches the middle front: you look up a “head” location
order. Another example, if the signer produces SHOW (ASL), the index
finger of the right hand touches the palm of the left hand. You look up a hand
location order. If the signer produces ONE (ASL), the index finger is the
front of the shoulder without contact symbols. You look up a last (neutral
space) location order.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial> You will
see the attached SW orders. You will find a first page. You look up
index finger and location orders. EYE (LSQ) is a highest level of the head than
higher level of the head for TOOTH (LSQ) than a high level of the head for CANDY
(LSQ) than a low level of the head for TO SAY (LSQ).</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial> Trevor, if
the signer who uses a British manual alphabet produces “A” (BSL), the index
finger of the right hand touches the thumb of the left hand (handshape 5).
You look up an index finger order and a hand location order in the BSL
dictionary. If the signer produces “I” (BSL), the index finger of the
right hand touches the tip of the middle finger of the left hand (handshape
5). You look up an index finger order and a hand location order. You will
see the attached SW orders (page 21).</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial> We will
adjust and test the LSQ dictionary. We are still working on
it. If Trevor, Charles or everyone takes a (SW) workshop
or attends a (SW) conference, we will be happy to teach him/her how to look up
quickly your own sign language in the dictionary.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial> Best
regards,</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6 face=Arial>
André</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #ffff00 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=christophermiller@mac.com
href="mailto:christophermiller@mac.com">Christopher Miller</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=sw-l@majordomo.valenciacc.edu
href="mailto:sw-l@majordomo.valenciacc.edu">SignWriting List</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Cc:</B> <A title=christophermiller@mac.com
href="mailto:christophermiller@mac.com">Christopher Miller</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, November 26, 2009 1:05
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [sw-l] Ordering Signs</DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffff00 size=6
face=Arial></FONT></STRONG><STRONG><FONT size=6
face=Arial></FONT></STRONG><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Just a short note about the origin of standard alphabetical order:
it actually descends from one of two orders used in the ancient Ugaritic
alphabet ca 14th century BCE. (Scroll down to "Alphabetic order" at <A
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki</A>/Alphabet.)
The order has been kept overall in all the non-Indic descendants of the West
Semitic alphabets except for the reformed Arabic alphabet, which nevertheless
kept it for letters used as numerals like the way we use a, b, c... in lists.
The chart from the primer that you cite is rather ingenious in the way it
tries to shoehorn the alphabetically ordered letters into aligning by place of
articulation but nearly as many letters fall through the cracks as fit into
the arrangement. </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Using conventional alphabetic orders for the handshapes of different sign
languages, following the handshape-letter pairings in various manual
alphabets, has the advantage (in each sign language) of using an order
familiar from the surrounding written version of the spoken language, but
there are always more handshapes than those in the manual alphabet, and the
ones in the manual alphabet are not all necessarily used in signs themselves,
as opposed to representing written letters for fingerspelling. And, in
two-handed alphabets like the British manual alphabet or other older ones used
in Italy, Indonesia or North America, a printed letter does not usually
correspond to a single given handshape and vice versa. ANd of course, there
are many more symbols apart from handshapes in any system for writing or
notating signs, whether Signwriting, Stokoe, Hamnosys or any other: locations,
movements etc. </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>So whatever the system, the best choice is to base the collation order on
aspects of the actual structure of the handshapes and other structural
elements used to make signs. Still, once you start on this basis, there are
lots of choices, some of them essentially arbitrary, as to what groups of
symbols, and what symbols within these groups, should be placed in what
order. </DIV><BR>
<DIV>
<DIV>On 2009-11-26, at 12:10 PM, Charles Butler wrote:</DIV><BR
class=Apple-interchange-newline>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN
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<DIV>
<DIV
style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px">I understand your concern that SW is too young to
mandate an order as it may grow linguistically for some situations.
However, the groups of handshapes are by fingers used, so though they are
also ASL numbers, they are based on which fingers are being used in a sign,
which makes them very useful in clustering signs together that all use the
"index finger", the "index and middle finger", the "index finger, middle,
and thumb", the "four fingers", "the four fingers and thumb", "the thumb and
small finger", the "thumb and ring finger", the "thumb and index finger" and
the "thumb/fist". <SPAN
class=Apple-converted-space> </SPAN><BR><BR>One can cluster in any
number of ways. Just as aside, the Roman Alphabet is thought to have
been based on a primer<BR><BR>A B C D<SPAN
class=Apple-converted-space> </SPAN><BR>E F G
H<BR>I
J<BR> K
L<BR> M N<BR>O P
Q
R<BR>
S<BR>
T<BR>U V W X
Y<BR>
Z<BR><BR>There are missing sounds, but a grid in order of vowels, bilabials,
gutterals, dentals, and liquids seems to work for
me.</DIV></DIV></DIV></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
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