LL-L "Orthography" 2005.05.05 (03) [E]

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From: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Orthograohy" 2005.05.03 (03) [E]

I assume signed languages of the Lowlands area could also be
considered lowlands languages, in a wy, so I assume there is no
problem with discussing them on-list, although I think any extensive
or detailed or complex dialogue regarding signed languages belongs on
a different list, or off-list.

> 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.

Here again we see the common misconception that Stokoe notation is not
suitable for everyday use for the masses, which Sutton Signwriting
books and websites say over and over. That is bullcrap. Their response
to that is "Well Stokoe intended it only to be a linguistic notation
system". Actually, Stokoe doesn't say what he intended it to be. The
actual symbols it uses aren't exactly easy to remember unless you are
familiar with the ASL fingerspelling alphabet, but the same is true in
theory with associating a symbol with a sound for writing spoken
languages.

Also, Stokoe text processing on computers is not headachingly-complex
as is SSW (you can't use SSW in MS Word, on webpages it needs to be an
image or you have to download a special plugin for your browser, etc),
and the actual system is less "cluttered" looking.

> 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.

Stokoe, with the minor modifications made by... I don't remember his
name, but he made a BSL dictionary in a slightly-modified Stokoe... is
suitable for writing all signed languages, does not need a big fat
weird book to learn (Stokoe teaches it in a couple of pages but that's
for experts, to explain it to a lay-person you would probably need
30~100 pages with examples).

How many people use it /currently/? Well, most experts prefer HamNoSys
because it allows you to be very specific, and most laypeople just
don't write signed languages but if they do prefer SSW due to
extensive propaganda campaigns by Ms. Sutton to promote her
copyrighted writing system (yes, it is copyrighted - for that reason
it cannot be found in The World's Writing Systems by Daniels and
Bright), talking about how impractical and otherwise-ungood all other
signed language writing systems are (I don't use the word
"signwriting" to refer to anything but SSW because it can get
confusing).

> 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.

Exactly. Some... guy designed an ASCII version of Stokoe, but it's not
'complete'. It could be done though, and much more easily than SSW.

> 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.

HamNoSys is difficult to learn and is impractical for everyday use for
those reasons.

> 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

Agreed. Except, depending on the medium, SSW might rank lower for me
because there are fonts for HamNoSys and t can easily be represented
in a textual format on PCs.

> 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.)

Exactly. Many of the people who I have talked to who have told me why
Stokoe and HamNoSys are bad seem to have no idea what they're talking
about, and many SSW advocates are a bit overzealous.

> 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.

That's because there's a wide transcription, and a narrow
transcription. Also, I'm not sure why, but the authors of the Japanese
section of the Handbook don't seem to realise that the syllabary, when
read, is actually sa-SHI-su... and ta-CHI-TSU rather than sa-si-su
ta-ti-tu. A bit stupid if you ask me - although some romanisation
systems write them in the latter fashion, it's not phonetic. And thus
the IPA used for the Japanese part of the Handbook is simply
_INCORRECT_.

Would it really've been that hard for them to have a section on
Mandarin, and perhaps a couple of Native American and Australian
Aboriginal languages?

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

I continue to hope, somewhat unreasonably, that some fairy will
sprinkle dust onto all the SSW crazies and the larger portion of
actual sane people who use SSW, and that they will wake up the next
morning having a strong urge to switch to the modified stokoe system
used in the BSL syuwa zitenn.

> 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).

Exactly. It would be better if they explicitly indicated shape with a
sort of drawing, but. That would just add to the confusion. If you
don't know ASL, you cn always just memorise it. And if you write it a
certain way, it doesn't look like you're using the roman alphabet. (if
you try, you can make it look like a script for one of Tolkien's
languages)

> 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.

For the simple fact that Stokoe worked so hard to get people to
realise that signed languages are real languages, I think that people
should ignore the national origin of the system. After all, the
largest speaker communities of signed languages are in India (over 1
million) and China.

> 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.

With your own modifications, or already-established modifications
based on a pblshed dictionary or somesuch?

> 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.

I think this is one of the sillier complaints. It's only to indicate
handshapes, since those basic handshapes are linked in many signed
languages with those letters used for writing the local spoken
language, and is easier to write than most systems that actually
involve a graphic representation of the handshape.

> 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).

SSW looks less like a writing system to me than Egyptian hieroglyphs
or Chinese ideograms. It actually resembles a kid's attempt to
indicate somebody's changes in emotions, or some bizzarre new-age
artform.

> 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.

That's a good point. But glossing only works if you know the locally
common spoken language and are literate in it.

> 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.

For writing in Osakaben, I think kanji should be used as long as the
sounds represented by the kanji are identical to those of Hyozyungo.
When they differ, you can use kana, or if it's a written text you can
use hurigana in some cases.

For Kagosimaben and Tugaruben (or, according to a few people,
"Tugarugo" - I saw the English term "Tsugarish" a couple of times and
had to try hard not to burst into laughter) even, kanji can usually be
used with little confusion. However, for Ryukyuan languages (ie,
nannsei syotouno genngo) - Amami, Okinawan, Miyako, Yaeyama,
Yonaguni... - it's much better to use all-hiragana because
pronunciations are too divergent to recognise, and often the meaning
changes.

For example, the etymologically-correct kanji for Okinawan "cimu"
("heart" in some cases, as in "cimuzhurasii", kind lit.
beautiful-hearted) is the same as used for Japanese "kimo" (liver),
yet some people use the Japanese kanji for "kokoro" which causes
confusion as it could also be pronounced "kukuru" in Okinawan.

And Hiragana-only has been preferred in the Ryukyus for centuries -
you can find many carvings on rocks near the beach made in the last
few centuries by commonpeople in the local tongue, never using kanji
until the early 1900s when the Japanese education system made sure
they learnt it and Japanese.

There are at least 3 different writing systems indigenous the Ryukyus,
only two of which we still have extensive knowledge, and only one of
which a native user of is still alive. Interestingly nobody seems to
be that interested in these: I had to write to the simaba (local-usage
term, used in Hyozyungo by Ryukyuans to mean a maternalistic older
woman on a small island) who runs the Yonaguni Ethnographic Museum
just to get a couple pages of information about Kaida-dii.

Mark

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

----------

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

Hi, Mark!

> I assume signed languages of the Lowlands area could also be
> considered lowlands languages, in a wy, so I assume there is no
> problem with discussing them on-list, although I think any extensive
> or detailed or complex dialogue regarding signed languages belongs on
> a different list, or off-list.

Agreed on both counts.  Lowlands sign languages have always been a part of
Lowlands-L, though the nitty-gritty details ought to be discussed on a
dedicated list.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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