Acronyms

Wed Sep 5 11:53:01 UTC 2007

Tommi Jantunen pointed that in Finland “acronyms are used almost exclusively in academic or "bureaucratic" settings, e.g. in articles (SVK in Finnish texts and FinSL in English texts), as a way to refer to the language by the means of writing. Also, it should be noted that the acronym SVK is used only by a handfull of (mostly hearing) linguists”. That is also the case in Greece. Greek Deaf people use a sign NOIMATIKI to refer to their sign language and use the acronym ΕΝΓ only in writing formal settings. I agree with Gerard that “contrary to audible languages, sign languages most often refer to the country they originate from and that they “are really politicized” but I don’t agree that “they are not owned by the signing people at all”. Sing languages have proper signed names (of course there are people even deaf who dispute their real linguistic nature) but not in written because sign languages are “oral” and not written. And I insist that despite language ideologies and political disputes practical needs must also be taken into consideration.

Thanks,

Dimitris

Athens Greece 

From: slling-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu [mailto:slling-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu] On Behalf Of GerardM
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 12:14 PM
To: A list for linguists interested in signed 
Subject: Re: [SLLING-L] RE: Acronyms

Hoi,
Typically the name for a language is a single word. Sign languages are often known in a spoken language as "sign language" and quite often that is all, no further differentiation. Most hearing people are not aware of the many sign languages that exist. 

Sign languages are typically associated with a country. It is for this reason that the name is "Nederlandse gebarentaal" and apparently because of Belgian politics "Belgian Sign Language" is not allowed. So contrary to audible languages, sign languages most often refer to the country they originate from. Sign languages are really politicised and not owned by the signing people at all. 

It is because sign languages seem to be controlled by countries that even their names are dominated in this way. As the names consequently consist of many parts an acronym is handy because of a lack of a proper name for a sign language 

Thanks,
    Gerard

On 9/5/07, Dimitris Mavreas <dmaureas at vodafone.net.gr> wrote:

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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