LL-L "Orthography" 2003.09.18 (11) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 18.SEP.2003 (11) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Orthography"

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Orthography
>
> across one of the less frequently encountered ones I do not immediately
> recognize it, need to stop and analyze it (like any newly encountered
> character) and then proceed with the assumption that it is a variant of a
> familiar character.  (It has happened that I did not recognize one despite
> having all the same elements, because the picture looked so
> different, and I
> had to look it up in a dictionary.)  To varying degrees, this is true also
> where there are variations in stroke or shape.  In a way it is similar to
> the scrambled letter situation, but I feel it is more of an impediment,
> perhaps because processing Chinese characters is even more like processing
> pictures.  I wonder if the same can be said of variation in sign
> languages.

I don't think problems like this arise in sign languages, or at least not
nearly to the same extent. One point to observe is that a human hand is a
human hand - a chap can't arrange to have his hand shaped differently as a
matter of style, nor is it practical to decide to use a different
arrangement of hands for a sign - the left hand is on the left, the right is
on the right, and that's that! Moreover, sign languages have spatial
grammar, and changing the position of a hand always has a definite meaning:
you can't sign something with two different hand arrangements and expect the
listener to take them to mean the same thing.

Another point to note is that a left-handed signer's signing is the mirror
image of a right-handed signer's signing, but a proficient signer may not
even notice that the person is left-handed. It's a bit like the way you
don't notice a person is left-handed when they write, unless you decide to
check their handedness. I should add that it's not always a mirror image:
there will be differences when the signer has to talk about things actually
being to the right or left of other things.

Different signers have hands of different size, chubbiness and colour, but
it makes no difference to anything. I think this maybe be because of
residual motor memory: when another person does something, you subconciously
have an idea how it feels to be doing that, so that another person's
handshape, even if it's a mirror image, is as familiar to you as your own
would be.

It's interesting to look at the ever more popular "SignWriting" system at
this point. It's iconographic, but not in the same way as Chinese is. When
we write the sign for aeroplane, we write not an iconograph representing an
aeroplane, but an iconograph representing a person's hand making the sign
for "aeroplane". More complex signs also represent both hands, the person's
head and facial expression, and sometimes other parts of the body, as
iconographs. Thus the system only has to represent parts of the human body
and their movements, so although it's iconographic, there's only a limited
number of icons, with obvious variants.

I was reading some SignWriting written by a schoolgirl in Brazilian Sign
Language recently. Although I don't know Brazilian Sign Language and so
couldn't really make out her meaning, I knew just how she moved her hands,
and noticed right away that she was left handed. But this doesn't hamper
reading at all, although the feeling - as if you yourself were signing
left-handedly, can be a bit odd.

However, there is such a thing as dialectical variation in sign languages,
so that signs for the same referent can be signed somewhat differently. This
can cause some problems, but I wouldn't think it was as problematic as
Chinese variant iconographs: I'm familiar with four different dialects of
BSL (South Wales, South Somerset, South Yorkshire and Scotland) and haven't
had difficulties like Ron seems to be describing. I would, I think, put this
down to the fact that unlike written Chinese, sign languages (whether
executed or written) have movement. Thus if the handshape in a variant sign
doesn't immediately clue you in to the meaning, there's a high chance that
the movement (combined with the approximate handshape) will, and vice versa.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

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From: Gary Taylor <gary_taylor_98 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

Hi Ron and all

Ron you wrote with reference to Chinese pictographs:

"As soon as I
come
across one of the less frequently encountered ones I
do not immediately
recognize it, need to stop and analyze it (like any
newly encountered
character) and then proceed with the assumption that
it is a variant of a familiar character."

So is there a language you don't know?? How many do
you know anyway? Any chance of a list...

Gary :)

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Orthography

Gary:

> So is there a language you don't know?? How many do
> you know anyway? Any chance of a list...

Nah!  I luv yer an aw, me mate, but sum things wiw ferreva be shrouded in
mystery.  :)

Sandy:

> Thus if the handshape in a variant sign doesn't immediately clue you in to
the meaning,
> there's a high chance that the movement (combined with the approximate
handshape)
> will, and vice versa.

Ah, that makes a lot of sense, Sandy.  Thanks.  I suppose it's a relational
thing -- movement in relation to a body, which is what everyone reads
everyday anyway.

Layta!
Reinhard/Ron

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