SignWriting in Esperanto-Gestuno....;-)

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
August 8, 2003

Dear SW List, Dan and Signuno (or whatever your name may be ;-)

Thanks Dan for explaining this to me...So I thought your name was
Dankon, which really meant "thank you" in Esperanto! Ha! This just
shows how much I know Esperanto....

I am actually not aware of the reasons for the questions...I just want
to answer their questions if I can...so if the group wants to use
SignWriting they are most welcome to...

Personally I have always believed that Esperanto or Gestuno, although
idealistic perhaps, really are not practical for everyday use...It
appears that the naturally-evolved languages that are used most for
business exchange between cultures....like French in the past, and
English at the moment etc... whatever language is used by the wealthier
countries of the day...they become, temporarily at least, the languages
that everyone aspires to learn...and because they are true languages
that evolved naturally...they tend to stick...For example, are there
any families that speak Esperanto as their native tongue? Probably
not...

But I will still try to answer our fingerspelling questions later today
-

Thanks for writing -  Val ;-)

------------------------------


On Friday, August 8, 2003, at 11:43 AM, Dan Parvaz wrote:

>> Dear SW List and Dankon!
>
> Heh. "Dankon" means "thanks" in Esperanto. :-)
>
> If the goal is to provide the deaf, hard-of-hearing (and apparently,
> those
> who are deaf and blind) with access to Esperanto orthography, why the
> departure from the one-handed manual alphabet understood by millions of
> deaf people worldwide? The letters like "z" and "j", for instance,
> could
> easily be modified to depict "zx" and "jx".  Zamenhof stuck to the
> widely
> used written Latin alphabet where possible;  following a similar
> guideline
> might be in order for fingerspelled Esperanto. Il also understand that
> the
> modifications were made to keep the wrist in the same position, but in
> doing so, ease of comprehension might be *decreased,* since letters
> start
> looking the same under the prpopsed scheme. In fact, it might not be a
> bad
> idea to start a workshop and let the participants vote on a manual
> alphabet.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Dan.
>
> Kara samideano: vi povas skribi al mi Esperante, sed la listlingvo cxi
> tie
> estas Angla.
>