Proudly two-handed in Oz!

[Adam Schembri]

>As Adam said there seems to be an Americanization process going on in
the
>Australian Deaf Community  in the way of the spread of the use of the
one
>handed fingerspelling alphabet. In New Zealand the opposite is
occurring the
>Deaf there reject any attempts to bring American signs into their
language.

I'm afraid you have misunderstood me. In my reply to your message about
acronyms, I did not claim that any "Americanisation" (notice the
spelling difference!) process is occuring in the Australian deaf
community. It is true that ASL has been the source of a number of loan
signs in Auslan (especially in non-core areas of the vocabulary), but
the fingerspelling used here remains overwhelmingly two-handed, as in
the U.K.

Adam Schembri

_____________________________________________________________

Adam Schembri
Renwick College
Private Bag 29
Parramatta NSW
2124 AUSTRALIA
Ph (voice/TTY): (61 2) 9872 0303
Fax: (61 2) 9873 1614




______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com