Acronyms

[Dimitris Mavreas]

I find very interesting the whole discussion. I must agree that although the
use of these acronyms is sometimes defined by political reasons (English
hegemony, decisions by linguists or sign language users etc.), it is also a
matter of practical needs. Greek alphabet despite similarities is different
from Roman or Cyrillic. It happens that Language in Greek is Γλώσσα (I hope
you can read the characters) so we must obligatory  use the letter Γ in the
acronym for the Greek Sing Language. The acronym in Greek is ΕΝΓ and it is
also used by Greek Deaf people ugh man. Of course when I participated to an
international conference, I used GSL acronym. I use instead ΕΝΓ acronym when
I write in Greek. I also use ΑΝΓ in order to refer to ASL because I want a
more transparent term for my Greek readers (and because it is also hard to
switch the language on my PC keyboard all the time!)  Linguists can always
go to the abbreviation list in order to find what GSL, NTS and so on really
mean. Abbreviations are used to make our lives easier. At the same time it
is interesting to consider why we don't have acronyms for spoken languages.

 

Dimitris Mavreas         

Athens Greece

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