names of signed languages

[Victor Brown]

"Danial A. Parvaz" wrote:

> I'm not sure it's ethnocentrism.  Americans got "dibs" on the A in ASL
> because, well, Stokoe got there first. I can't call Jordanian Sign
> Langauge JSL, because some enterprising soul reserves the J for Japanese
> Sign Langauge; any claim of Japanese imperialism is probably severely
> dated. So I can use something like JoSL, basing my acronym on English, or
> LIU, based on one possible Arabic nomenclature. In either case, neither
> term is in current use by anybody except me.

Dan said it well. And reminds us that that acronyms can be had from
non-English languages.

Dan also, brings out another thing. Okay, suppose you are the first one
there, like Stokoe with ASL, why not start using LIU for Jordanian Sign?
Dan
is a respected person. Right? Do we all have to wait until after he
graduates, or is 45 years old, or dies?

I'm play around here a bit. But at the same time some of us linguistics
need
to take a bit of pride in what we know about a language. (I'm not ready
to do
this.) Stokoe was a brave man, bold even, because he believed in his
work and
felt in some way that it was more important than any ridicule that may
come
about. (My perceptions of his story.) We have grown up from that
experience
haven't we, I mean both Hearing and Deaf. (Touchy subject I know.)

If Dan likes LIU and feels for now it is appropriate, then we should
respect
that. If at some later date, someone else comes along, or the Jordanian
Deaf
community changes their mind, then we all change too.

LIU is unique, it isn't XSL, LSX, or XGT. It gives us an acronym we can
easily remember as "that signed language over there in Jordan".

It is however, still from the spoken language. Is this good or bad?

Later,
Victor

PS Dan will have to let us know, if he wants to start using LIU. I am
not
suggesting we make that decision for him.