COLOMBIA: Question Tortoise sign

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
May 7, 2003

On Wednesday, May 7, 2003, at 04:13 AM, Ingvild Roald wrote:
> So when I look at the writng of the sign form Colombia, I cannot place
> my
> physical right-hand thumb in any posisiton that can be written as
> given,
> with or without arms ....Ingvild

Hello Ingvild and Everyone!
Even the best illustrators who are doing life-like drawings of the
hands, have difficulty with the sign for "turtle" because the thumb is
trying to show the head of a turtle going inside and outside of his
shell, which is the hand on top...and just the nature of the sign
involves "hidden fingers"...so no matter what we do...it cannot be a
perfect-looking...

Whenever possible we try to put the hands together, when there is
contact...I just thought turtle was an exception because it is harder
to read...but you did a good job, Ingvild, and because I know the sign,
I can read your writing...

If we place the hands not directly on top of each other, but just a
little bit away from each other, so we can see the two handshapes
completely...usually people read that faster...

Regarding the thumbs, direct them in any direction that feels best to
you - The writing that I did was not meant to hurt anyone's thumbs in
real life - ha! But instead it just gave the general information that a
thumb was sticking out...

Spoken languages don't write every sound detail either...and I guess
the standardization of spellings is the key to this...because if we
memorize one set way to write that sign, after awhile we start to
forget all the detail that was left out, and we see the sign in our
mind's eye as correctly signed...

Which obviously leads to SignBank...and why it is good to try to
establish some of those standards...

Val ;-)