LL-L "Orthograohy" 2005.05.03 (03) [E]

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From: Mike Morgan <Mike.Morgan at mb3.seikyou.ne.jp>
Subject: LL-L "Anniversary" 2005.05.03 (04) [E]


Dear Sandy, and any and all Lowlanders interested in questions of choices of
"Orthography"  (which subject heading perhaps this posting pertains to as
much as "Anniversary"),

I apologize straight off that the following is more of a polemic than an
email: not short, and maybe not even to the point.

In response to my "corrections" (meant as clarification or comment more than
correction) to the BSL (British Sign Language: henceforth "Sign Language"
always = SL) version of "The Wren", Sandy writes:

> Do you think you could write "The Wren" in Hamnosys (in JSL, for example)?

The short answer is: Yes. Well, not ME personally (for reasons that may or
may not be obvious as my comments unfold), but at least a half a dozen
people in Japan I know (and MAYBE some I don't) could.

> Would it be clear and accurate?

Most definitely Both clear and accurate. (Some would say, TOO accurate.)

> Would it be easy to read?

That, my friend is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. But then, how easy,
really, is SignWriting to read ... not for you, and to a lesser extent me,
but for the uninitiated (as perhaps most all who took a look at the BSL "The
Wren" translation) ... and even for me I started out reading from the wrong
side (like reading Yiddish from left to right) and only self corrected when
it didn't make sense (though read as such, it would be interesting as a
"found poem"!)

> Is Hamnosys really a writing system? Is Stokoe Notation really a writing
> system?

Yes, of course. They are writing and they are both systems (though making an
aesthetic judgment before I introduce the issue of aesthetics, HamnoSys is
much TOO systematic (German?) for my tastes) ... and for SLs there are
several others out there that I am familiar, if not friends, with (plus
probably many others I am not). The question, YOUR question, is I think, Are
they GOOD writing systems? And there, the answer may well be no ... at least
for many people, and many purposes.

But the question of "how good" is not only one of degrees (I, for one am
searching for the PERFECT system ... but hold not my breath), but also one
which is personal and one which needs to be judged on a variety of criteria.
And as there are many on Lowlands in search of the ideal orthography for
their favorite language/dialect/variety, the issues addressed herein MAY be
applicable ... even if the language you have in mind is structurally very
different from a SL.

So, what ARE the (if not THE) issues/criteria? Put broadly, I would propose
three (though maybe not ONLY three):

1) practicality and usefulness
2) phonetic- vs phonemic-ness
3) aesthetics

1) Practicality and Ease of use:

We do, or at least many of us do, live in the real world. In the "old days",
when Sign Language Linguistics was being born (think: early 1960s) or even
when I first started to jot down signs (think early 1990s), there was no
Unicode, no downloadable SignWriting fonts, no internet connections (for me
at least, in underdeveloped Japan), and for the earlier date also no
personal computers (and much less PC of other varieties as well). And in
much of the world today, that is STILL the case.  So a transcription system
that relies on any of the above, is still a ways off for many ... though
certainly not where Sandy lives, and not where I do.

When the internet was young, an ASCII version of IPA was developed. A good
thing at the time, very practical. But times have changed, and I would guess
that it has outlived its usefulness. MAYBE the same could be said for the
Stokoe system (though it is what I tend to use for everyday purposes ...
while I develop my perfect system), which had the advantages that you could
write it relatively painlessly given the technology of the day.

And on the question of how easy it is to learn, and how easy it is to read
and write once you do learn, ALL systems take some time and effort to learn.
While we might tend to think the simpler the system (fewer number of units)
the easier it is to learn and use, this is not the case always. To be
extreme (which I am often want to do to provoke discussion), the simplest of
orthographic systems, in which anything vocalic is written "a" and anything
consonantal is written "b", and anything semi- is written "y" would be easy
to learn, and easy to write, but a real when it comes to writing. Like
Semitic orthography taken to the nth degree.

And, having just come back fro a trip to VietNam less than a month ago, most
young people over whose shoulders I looked as they did their online chat,
and sent their emails, ease and practicality sometimes means ignoring
everything you were taught at school. To whit, I NEVER saw anybody entering
the proper diacritics over the vowels (e.g., ồ, ẫ) ̀or the barred d (đ)
.., all of which are NECESSARY to read and write Vietnamese ... or so some
would believe. But these "kids" were doing just fine. (Ditto Hausa without
length and tone marks, and a hundred other example from the everyday usage
of a hundred other languages.)

If I were to rate overall practicality and ease of use, then of the three SL
writing systems mentioned: Stokoe > SignWriting >>> HamnoSys

But questions of usefulness are at least theoretically separate from
questions of how widely something is used. So, when Sandy asks:
> Is there any literature on the Web in Hamnosys at all? For example are
> there
> any stories for children such as you see appearing in SignWriting? Do
> young
> children actually read and write Hamnosys as part of their education, as
> happens in SignWriting?

 The answer is: No. SignWriting is the ONLY system I know of that has a web
site with stories in (various) SLs on-line, the only system I know that is
used widely (?: I know of a FEW countries where it is) in Deaf Education to
actually teach Deaf kids SL and about SL (structure, etc). The why's are
many; to a large degree SignWriting is a good and useful and appealing
system. But, some of it also has to do with "evangelical fervor". There are
lots of people involved with SignWriting, maybe Sandy among them, who are
"true believers".  They have "zeal". They work to "spread the word". (I use
all these terms as analogy. They are all GOOD traits. I am a true believer
... in many things, including "Code's-truth (as opposed to God's Truth)
Linguistics". And they are certainly part of what is desperately needed to
overcome the centuries of suppression of the language(s). Kids NEED to be
taught their mother tongue; and even if  their birth-mothers are hearing
non-signers, their adopted mother, the Deaf community they enter at some
stage in their life, IS. And to teach and learn a language, orthographies,
writing systems are pretty much a must. And SignWriting IS a writing system
(though as I said in my original posting, and continue to insist, only "A"
not "THE" writing system. A quibble about words.)

On the other hand, as an example of the other systems out there, the people
who developed HamnoSys (some of whom I have met at various TISLR -
Theoretical Issues in Sign Linguistics - conferences) are academics (but
academics CAN be nice guys, too, though some, even on this list, have been
accused of living in an ivory tower. MINE is concrete, and I only live on
the 7th floor, not the 15th).

2) -etic vs -emic

If it is not perfectly clear, I AM a linguist, and so have visceral
reactions to such matters. And being a linguist of the ilk I am, I have VERY
strong feelings (-emic = linguistic, -etic ≠ linguistic ... though perhaps
useful and interesting none the less).

In the real world you take what you are given and do what you can with it.
In the case of English, that means a system that is (in the 21st century
anyway), NEITHER phonemic nor phonetic. So when we teach people to read and
write (L1 children and L2 of all ages), we may well opt for teaching them a
more -emic or a more -etic system. But eventually we also have to teach them
to deal with reality.

With heretofore unwritten languages (or languages with developing
orthographies), we DO have a choice (or at least input). But the jury is
still out (though NOT in my mind) as to whether that choice should be -emic
or -etic ... or somewhere in between.

And we ALSO have to decide whether morphological maters enter into the
choice as well. So, for example, in Russian writes words with the same
morpheme and the same phoneme the same (e.g. молоко 'milk' has three
phonetically DIFFERENT vowels (roughly [ m^lako ]), but ALL are phonemically
/o/, as evidenced by pronunciation when the stress shifts, as in молочник
'milkman, milk-jug' where the second /o/ is stressed and thus [ o]),
regardless of pronunciation (e.g. voicing assimilations), while Belarusian
sides with pronunciation (e.g. вецер 'wind' and its plural вятры), as does
Serbian (e.g. учење 'learning' vs уџбеник 'textbook' both with the morpheme
уч- 'study', the latter with assimilative voicing of ч > џ before voiced б).
As the Vuk Karadzic said: "Write it as you say it". (But rarely are systems
100% consistent in their application. Thus, for Serbian, the уч- above is
really ук- as in наука 'science'.) Which is the best system? The easiest?
Hard to say. For someone who started learning Serbian long after he had
already acquired Russian, with all its quirks, and who still finds
Belarusian funny-looking, I have my PREFERENCE, but it is just that ... and
only applies to Slavic language preferences.

Without a doubt (and perhaps not unconnectedly), the ordering is exactly the
same as above: Stokoe (nearly purely phonemic) >> SignWriting >> HamnoSys
(extremely phonetic)

Though most systems (even IPA) allow for a range of detail (-eticness). On
the other hand, it is still a question in my mind whether HamnoSys allows
for a totally phonemic transcription (and nothing more). When I look at more
than an isolated word in HamnoSys, my eyes still glaze over; there are too
many trees to see the forest.

And though it borders on an aesthetic choice, I find that while sentences
transcribed with everything in them (stress, intonation, rhythm), are
perfectly acceptable, reading a story (SL or other) with everything in it
transcribed is like watching a movie (directed by a second-rate has been)
rather than reading the book (written by a stylistic genius): leaving
somethings to the imagination allows reading to be an interpretive/creative
process.

3) Aesthetics

Much of what I have already said also touches on what for me is aesthetics.
What I have called aesthetic issues include, for me much more than visual
aesthetics (though as a very visual person ... perhaps the draw of SL in the
first place .. that too is included), and includes what others would call
political issues (including the question of nationalism vs
internationalism).

But visual aesthetics first. To me, the most visually attractive
transcription system developed for SLs was that of Paul Jouison, long
deceased, presented in a paper in 1989, the English version of which can be
found in _Signum, International Studies on Sign Language and the
COmmunication of the Deaf_, ed. Prilwitz and Vollhabert, Hamburg, 1989. pp.
337-354.  (That same volume, if I remember correctly, also has a number of
other papers on SL transcription systems.) And the paper includes a story
(or at least part of a story) in LSF (French SL).

For me, HamnoSys is too detailed, and I mean visually as well as
phonetically. It's too "busy". (That, however is a matter of taste; I for
one am a big fan of Joan Miró.)

As for political aesthetics, for SLs it boils down a an interplay of
expressions of identity. Deaf Identity, National identity, and
International identity.

Personal identity
Community identity (Deaf ... and usually more, though sometimes less)
National identity (Japanese, American, whatever ... but also sub-national
identity, as in Osakan Japanese, NOT Tokyo Japanese)
International identity (this IS the 21st century)

Taking these in reverse order: Sandy asks of HamnoSys (or was it Stokoe's
system; I forget): "Is it international?" Yes, they are; Stokoe's system was
developed in the US, but is widely used (though mostly for transcribing
individual words NOT texts). It was, for example, the system used in the
first SL dictionary written on linguistic principles (not surprising since
the author was William Stokoe himself!), but also the choice of the British
Deaf Association (close enough to home?) for their hefty dictionary
_Dictionary of British Sign Language_, 1992. The HamnoSys system was
developed in Hamburg, Germany, but is, as I've said used here in Japan by
some. It was also the choice for the National Association of the Deaf in
Thailand's almost as hefty _The Thai Sign Language Dictionary_, 1990. And to
give SignWriting its due, SignWriting was the choice of the authors even
more hefty two-volume _Dicionário Enciclopédico Ilustrado Trilíngüe Língua
de Sinais Brasileira_, 2001. All wonderful, all useful, and all on the
shelves of my personal library.

IPA is nice, IPA is useful, IPA is international. But even there, there are
American versions as well as European versions (variants), and when I read,
for example the transcribed text of the Japanese version of the North Wind
story (sorry, no "The Wren" there) in the latest (1999) edition of the
_Handbook of the IPA_, I for one am aghast! THIS is NOT phonetic, this is
NOT international, this IS barely disguised romaji.

But as for SL, yet there is no ONE system agreed upon and used by everyone.
And MAYBE never will be.

And ONE reason is that Deaf folk, like the rest of us, have
sub-international identities as well. One of the (biggest?) complaints about
the Stokoe system, is that it uses as the handshapes of the letters of the
AMERICAN manual alphabet in the transcription. Thus "B" means the handshape
(more or less) of the ASL finger-spelled "b". Which is very different from
the shape of BSL "b" (which is two-handed to boot), and different from the
handshapes JSL of "ba", "bi", "be", "bo" AND "bu" (it is, after all,
syllabic, not alphabetic ...an expression of national identity).

Similar criticisms are often aimed at orthographic choices for spoken
languages as well. Occitan has at least too very different traditions, and
ONE of those is that the Mistral tradition is to Francophile, too
anti-Occitan. Similarly for systems to write Fries; do we go with a system
"borrowed" from the majority (or at least prestige) language, or do we go
with something indigenous ... an/or original. Maybe something as much UNlike
the majority/prestige language as possible to better express our separate
identity. So too in the SL world, where there are many who resist American
hegemony ... sometimes while being grateful to at least one American
(Stokoe) for having "invented" SL linguistics and recognition that SLs ARE
languages in their own right.

In response, of course, first, handshapes are only one part of SLs, and so
MOST of the system has NOTHING to do with fingerspelled handshapes. Also,
when it does come to finger-spelled handshapes, most SLs in the world, to
the extent that they use finger spelling, have alphabets closely resembling
the ASL manual alphabet. Most are one-handed (BSL and its progeny are the
exceptions) and alphabetic (EVEN when the written version of the spoken
language is syllabic; JSL is an exception, though NOT the only one), and
most derive from the finger-spelling system first developed in Spain in the
16th or 17th century, mostly indirectly, including thanks to the adoption by
the World Federation of the Deaf as the International Manual Alphabet. Thus,
most the handshapes in Stokoe's system are exactly the handshapes found in
the SLs of the world (okay, I'm generalizing only from personal experience
... with maybe 10-20% of the SLs out there). And most systems are open to
local modification (diacritics and the like). I for one use a MODIFIED
Stokoe system, just as I use a modified IPA.

Another complaint is that they are based on manual finger spelling which in
turn is connected with the SPOKEN language, and as such is inappropriate for
transcribing a VISUAL language. Also, a SL transcription system using the
letters of the majority (oppressor) language somehow goes against the Deaf
identity of the signers themselves.

Both SignWriting and HamnoSys avoid both problems.

On the other hand, to some, SignWriting looks like ... well, it looks like
pictures. NOT writing. NOT language. I know better; Egyptian hieroglyphics
are "just" pictures, Chinese characters (that so often find their way into
the emails of certain Lowlanders) are "just" pictures. So too SignWriting
... at, least in the minds of many (including many Deaf, educated in the
values of hearing majorities with written languages). Thus we need to ask if
promoting this system might not also reinforces prejudices in the minds of
people who see it (who maybe have the preconceived notion that SL is if not
not language, and LESS than language, then at least a LESSER language .. and
I know many who fall in this camp, deaf as well as hearing) and maybe also
in some who use it (though I don't personally know many to ask). So we
should at least pause and think ... and then go on about our business, for
even an elegant writing system and a library full of poetry and short
stories and novels written in this system may not  overcome those prejudices
(though they MAY get more universities in the US to accept ASL as fulfilling
foreign language requirements).

So, perhaps, even this resister, will admit that, of the systems mentioned
(by ME), SignWriting may be the "best" ... whatever THAT means. But NOT the
best for ALL purposes, and NOT the best for ALL people (i.e. NOT for me ...
except as a reader).

But ALL this discussion has left out the one most used transcription system
for SL texts of sentence length or greater: Glossing! When I not down a new
sign, I use an adapted Stokoe transcription. But when I transcribe JSL
stories, interviews, etc. I do multiple-line glossing (for which I have set
up a template on my word processor of preference, and for which there are a
number of commercially available programs ... maybe even something free on
the internet!). A main (central) line for "words", with a second line  for
the maybe 20% of the time when the second hand is doing something separate,
a third line above for non-manuals (e.g. grammatical devices like eye-gaze,
eyebrow-raising/lowering, head-tilt, mouth shapes, mouthing, and much much
more ... usually "morphemically" rather than phonetically, as, for example,
topic marking is so common, and involves a number of manuals that it is a
pain to enter all everytime topic marking occurs. And I am not alone here;
MOST people who transcribe SL texts do this ... at least if published
materials are a reflection of what is being done out there.

Hope this is not too long-winded and esoteric (or trite and simplistic). ...
It is, of course, all yet another attempt to put off grading as long as
possible.

And I am (still) pondering what orthographic conventions to use in my
contributions to the Anniversary page (IF I get around to it before it is
too late ... but then, maybe not too late for the 20th anniversary :)):
should I go with a Cyrillic Old Bulgarian or Glagolitic; should I use kanji
in my Osaka-dialect version of "The Wren" or not, should I submit my JSL
version as video only, or as glossed text ... or both.


Mike Morgan
Sign Theoretical Linguist (for most all my adult life)
Theoretical Sign Linguist (for the past decade or so)
Theoretically a Linguist (signed ... )
KCUFS

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