use of sign language in Jordan

[GerardM]

Hoi,
Thank you for putting up with me.. :)

I do agree that i would not necessarily trust Wikipedia to get expert
understanding right however, there is a project under way coordinated by the
"linguist network" that aims to ensure that the field of linguistics is
properly represented on particularly the English language Wikipedia. Given
that the Wikipedia definition of "alphabet" was the one different from all
the other definitions I could find, it was my reason for doing some
analysis.

Where you argue that experts have a different vocabulary, it helps when
their definitions are readily available and are unambiguously defined.
Without this they are like a secret cabal that do mysterious things that
nobody should try to understand and where the application is .. academic.

Iconicity seems to have an equivalent in tonality. Tonality is captured in
alphabetic systems just fine.

When an alphabet is defined as the characters needed to write a language
then SignWriting is both the script and the alphabet needed to write a
particular sign language in SignWriting. There is nothing wrong with
homonyms :)

Thanks,
    Gerard

LINGUIST Network <linguist at linguistlist.org>

On 9/27/07, Sonja Erlenkamp <sonja.erlenkamp at hist.no> wrote:
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> Fra: slling-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu på vegne av GerardM
> Sendt: to 27.09.2007 08:51
> Til: Albert Bickford; A list for linguists interested in signed languages
> Emne: Re: [SLLING-L] use of sign language in Jordan
>
>
> >Hoi,
> >I always love it when people insist that words have another meaning
> because of it being officially something >else. The consequence of giving a
> word a different meaning from what everybody else understands by it >means
> by it is that communication breaks down.
>
> I don't agree at all. It just means that experts do have their own
> terminology which is - and has to be - more complex that that of
> non-experts. And actually I wouldn't necessarily trust Wikipedia to give me
> explanations on expert terminology.
> If we want to be able to analyze languages at all, we need these kind of
> differentiated terminology. Sign language "phonology" is different to spoken
> language phonology, amongst others because of its higher degree of
> simultaneity, its visual articulators and last but nor least the vast extend
> it makes use of iconicity already on the level og handshapes,
> handorientations, movements and so on.
>
> Iconicity is not captured in alphabetic system, but could be in for
> example a logographic system. Wether or not Signwriting is one or the other
> or something different is not to me to decide, since I haven't worked enough
> with SignWriting, BUT the distinction between alphabetic systems and the
> others mentioned IS important to those people working on for example the
> development of writing systems for SLs.
>
> best regards
>
> Sonja Erlenkamp
>
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