just another perspective

[Adam Schembri]

>Hi everyone.  I just recently joined this listserve.  I am a sophomore
>speech pathology and audiology major at Stockton State College in NJ.
>I've been doing my best to follow the discussion on acronyms and
>abbreviations for the various versions of sign, yet I think that I must
>have missed the initial question.  Is that you, we, are attempting to
>form acronyms for the other versions of sign, for our own convenience?

I started this discussion because I'm interested in collecting the names
used in particular countries for their local signed language (such as
"Langue des signes francaise" or "LSF" for "French Sign Language"), but
also because I've noticed a trend in the sign linguistics literature to
do this and wanted to raise awareness of this process. It seems to me
like a good idea to refer to the signed language used in France as "LSF"
rather than FSL because (1) this what the locals call it and (2) because
acronyms based on languages other than English (DGS, NS, LIS etc) reduce
potential ambiguity (i.e., GSL for German Sign Language, Greek Sign
Language etc).

NB Different signed languages are different languages not just different
"versions" of sign, as you put it.

Just to comment on earlier remarks, I don't think it's American
ethnocentrism to call American Sign Language "ASL" because, as Mark
Mandel said, it's just that you guys got there first. We in Australia
now have a perfectly good name for our local signed language "Auslan".
Although signers anecdotally report a high degree of mutual
intelligibility between Auslan, NZSL and BSL, the nature of the
relationship between the 3 languages is still unclear. I'm not quite
willing just yet to say they're all dialects of the same signed language
(perhaps to be called "Anglo-Australasian Sign Language" or "AASL"?),
but there's a lot to suggest that this may actually be the most
appropriate view of the relationship, especially between Auslan and BSL.

As for Afrikaaner Sign Language, the whole point of my question was that
it would be called something like Afrikaaner Gebarentaal (AGT?), based
on whatever the actual term in Afrikaans is (I've just used my knowledge
of the Dutch here to make a guess-hope that doesn't offend any
Afrikaaner speakers!)

Adam Schembri



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




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