Position Symbols

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
July 11, 2003

Daniel - The List is now receiving your messages, the second time 
around...Sometimes the LISTSERVE software is not perfect, so I am glad 
you tried again...Thanks for your messages!  My messages have also been 
coming in very slowly lately to the List...maybe it is a little jammed 
right now...

Now in regards to the terminology you mention below, called "Position 
Symbols"...goodness...for me Position Symbols have nothing to do with 
programming. They existed way back in our history.  Position Symbols 
are symbols that have been used as far back as 1973, in DanceWriting, 
and later in SignWriting, to show depth and height and location of 
movement in space. There are a whole series of Position Symbols in the 
Sutton Movement Writing system, and none of them are connected to 
computers.... They are connected to giving researchers detailed 
information about the movement that is being written, even though we 
don't normally write with Position Symbols, in everyday use. The 
Position Symbols are useful symbols for detailed analysis...I will post 
them to the List to show you all what a Position Symbol is...

But it is true that recently the Position Symbols started to be used in 
computers and programming, with the advent of SignBank and sorting 
dictionaries by Sign-Symbol-Sequence. If a person doesn't want a truly 
detailed way to lookup signs, then the Position Symbols are not 
necessary for looking up...but if the user wants a very refined way to 
lookup...then using the Position Symbols helps create a refined lookup 
system...No handwriting exists for those symbols because they are way 
toooo much detail for everyday use...

OK everyone. Would you like me to show you all the Position Symbols 
here on the List? There are a lot of them! I will be happy to do that 
in the next few messages...

Val ;-)

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

On Friday, July 11, 2003, at 09:20 AM, Daniel Noelpp wrote:

> Hello Valerie, hello friends
>
> Today the SignWriting mailing list suddenly stopped accepting
> e-mails from me. I am trying again and if it didn't work
> out, Valerie will forward them for me.
>
> I am sorry!
> Daniel
>
> --- Weitergeleitete Nachricht / Forwarded Message ---
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 11:20:16 +0200 (MEST)
> From: Daniel Noelpp <d.noelpp at gmx.ch>
> To: SignWriting List <SW-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA>
> Subject: Position Symbols
>
>> Hello friends
>>
>> I wrote about using "control codes" for SignWriting. I discovered
>> today that Valerie and Carlos had the same idea but gave the
>> thing another name: "position symbols". :-)
>>
>> What a shocking discovery! :-)
>>
>> Valerie, Carlos:
>>
>> Did I understand you correctly: "position symbols" are invisible
>> symbols which control the position of the following symbol in a
>> sign?
>>
>> And another question: My idea was to use "rotation symbols".
>> They aren't really neccessary if all variants of the symbols
>> (including the rotated and flopped versions) are kept distinct
>> and not unique. Am I right?
>>
>> How many such different symbols are in the
>> "Symbols-at-a-Glance" dictionary?
>>
>> http://www.signbank.org/symbolbank/sssglance/index.html
>>
>> Did you already add the position symbols to the symbol set?
>>
>> Daniel
>>
>> Carlos wrote:
>>
>>>   Yes, after talking with Valerie about the "position symbols" she
>>> uses when spelling signs in SignBank, I changed my mind about the
>>> possibility of encoding SW in Unicode.
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>>   In SW, due to the writing on the two dimensions of a surface (paper
>>> or screen), one needs two position information to locate a symbol,
>>> let's say, its "x" and its "y" coordinates. Following the SignWriter
>>> way to encoded, each such information is relative to a virtual box
>>> encompassing each sign (the "signbox"), so the values of "x" and "y"
>>> are kept relatively small (in fact, varying from 0 to 48).
>>>
>>> [...]
>
> -- 
> +++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more  http://www.gmx.net +++
>
> Jetzt ein- oder umsteigen und USB-Speicheruhr als Prämie sichern!
>