Names of signed languages

[Dan I. SLOBIN]

Speaking of Auslan--remember Ameslan?  Maybe it didn't catch on because
we're so used to alphabetical acronyms--going back to NBC, FDR, TVA,
etc., all the way to OIC in the news these days in the States (Office of
the Independent Counsel).  When we make acronyms with parts of words, we
seem to want there to be some transparency (Monicagate, chickenburger,
fishwich).  Auslan has the necessary transparency (for hearing people),
since "Australia" and "language" are still identifiable.  But everything
is lost in the pronunciation of Ameslan:  wrong stress (cf. AmErica),
wrong vowels (reduction of lAnguage to a neutral unstressed vowel in
-lan), opacity of source word (reduction of sign to a bare s).  But this
is becoming a discussion for the LinguistList, rather than SLLING.

-Dan Slobin
Dept of Psychology
University of California, Berkeley