sign languages without fingerspelling

[Mieke Van Herreweghe]

Hi,

A friend of mine is very interested in fingerspelling and the
different fingerspelling alphabets in the world. She was wondering
about the following (and I got curious as well):
1. Are there any sign languages in the world that do not make use of
fingerspelling. I can imagine that sign languages in communities
that do not have a writing system, do not make use of fingerspelling.
However, has this been attested? Does anybody know where we could
find any literature about this?
2. Is there fingerspelling in communities where the spoken language
does not have a phonetic/phonological alphabet (e.g. Chinese,
Japanese, since as far as I know these do not have
phonetically/phonologically encoded writing systems)? And if there
is, how is the fingerspelling encoded?

Just out of curiosity,

Thanks!!

Mieke Van Herreweghe

P.S. I am looking for Carol Padden's e-mail-address. Could anyone
help me out?


Dr. Mieke Van Herreweghe
_________________________

Universiteit Gent
Vakgroep Engels
Rozier 44
9000 Gent
tel. 09/264 37 92
fax 09/264 41 79