AW: Dictionary question

Mon Oct 6 12:09:02 UTC 2003

Hi Nana and SW-listers -

I thought about your idea to rename the 001 dictionary -

hmm from my point of view and from my experience there is a problem ..

I would recommend a different strategy although it seems to be a little bit
more time consuming in the beginning - but in the long run you would be
better off this way -

just go to the dictionary - manager program and convert the 001 dictionary
if you feel that many of ASL signs seem to be the same ..

Now you will get some 001.sgn files in your SW program -
Just open the first and browse through this wonderful list ---

If you set up a new original  dictionary for  the Phillipines you can copy
sign by sign to your new dictionary -

The advantage will be that your dictionary will not be a combination of
different SL  .. This may cause trouble to distinguish ...

Stefan;-))

-----Urspr ÿÿ gliche Nachricht-----
Von: SignWriting List [mailto:SW-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA]Im Auftrag von
Nana Dumitra
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 2. Oktober 2003 17:14
An: SW-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA
Betreff: AW: Dictionary question

Dear SW List, Stefan, Charles and Val,

Thanks to all of you for all your suggestions. I think I will try to go with
the second option Val suggested, renaming the ASL files, because many of the
signes here are similar or even the same with ASL then I can use at least
part of the ASL dictionary and just delete the signs that are totally
different. But for now I will try to do two seperate dictionaries, one
English - Filipino Sign Language and one Tagalog - Filipino Sign Language.
Val made me realise that Tagalog sorts a dictionary differently than either
German (my first language) or English, so I am thinking it makes more sense
to keep the two separat for now.

I tried again to go to the internet to download Signbank, but as I told you
before: we have horrible phone connections (at least if you need a lot of
data transfered :)) - it would have taken between 10 and 22 hours to
download the running (?) version, well, I stopped trying after I got
disconnected for the 10th time...

I will just work in DOS for now.

Now that I am "really"starting, I am very excited about everything. My
husband Marian had some deaf over in the afternoon (it is late evening here
already) - they wanted to prepare for a Bible study group. They ended up
talking about SignWriting, learing the first handshapes. I am thinking of
making a few simple booklets (like children's books) to give them something
to read and practise on.

Maybe I should stop before this mail turns into a book by itself :)!
Nana

-----Urspr ÿÿ gliche Nachricht-----
Von: Valerie Sutton [mailto:Sutton at SIGNWRITING.ORG]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 30. September 2003 22:25
An: SW-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA
Betreff: Re: Dictionary question

SignWriting List
September 30, 2003

Dear SW List, Charles and Nana from the Phillipines!
Thank you for your two messages below. I am very happy, Nana, that you
are working with SignWriting in the Phillipines!

Charles gave you a very interesting idea in his message. He pointed out
that you could create a brand new dictionary file in SignWriter DOS,
naming it 063, and then blend the two spoken languages into one big
dictionary file...That could be done right now...Perhaps you have
already done this? There are two ways to do this:

1. Create a brand new dicitonary file and name it 063 or any other name
you wish, and start filling it with a mixture of languages...This is a
good way to work, since it will give you an empty dictionary file from
the beginning...

2. Create a brand new country code for the Phillipines. Do you want to
use English, while you are working with SW-DOS? There are three
English-related countries in the SW-DOS folder:

sw044....England
sw353....Ireland
sw001....USA

Someday we could create a special fingerspelling keyboard just for the
Phillipines, but at this time, we do not have that....so you will need
to decide which fingerspelling system you want for the moment...the
two-handed British, the Irish or the USA fingerspelling?

Let us imagine that you choose the USA...You need to find four files:

sw001.msg
sw001.key
sw001.dic
sw001.din

Make copies of these four files and rename them

sw063.msg
sw063.key
sw063.dic
sw063.din

Then start SignWriter DOS and change your country code to 063.

This second idea has a good side, in that you are always in one
country...but the bad side is that your dictionary file will already be
filled with 3000 American signs, and you will need to delete all of
them! smile...

I have more to tell you, about tri-lingual dictionaries, but that will
have to wait for now...I will need to know if Tagalog sorts
dictionaries in a different way, than English, because all of our
dicitonaries in SW-DOS were specially setup to sort properly, within
the language you are using...For example, just because Spain uses the
Roman alphabet, it does not sort dictionaries in the same way that
English does, so the Spanish dictionary files are setup to sort by the
world standard for Spanish...so does Tagalog sort like Spanish does,
with special sections in the dictionary for RR and LL? If so, you might
want to duplicate a Spanish speaking dictionary file instead...This can
get so complex that maybe it doesn't matter? Try one of the suggestions
above, and when you bump into a problem, we can face that at that time!

You see, SignBank does not have the problems of SW-DOS, so it all
depends on what software you choose to use, to create your
dicitonaries. The dictionary sorting problems, and the true separate
trilingual dictionary can be created in SignBank easily, once you have
typed your dictionary file in SW-DOS...

Val ;-)

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

On Tuesday, September 30, 2003, at 12:16 AM, Nana Dumitra wrote:
> I started to work on a SW dictionary for the Philippines, set up under
> 063 to match the way other dictionaries are set up. My question:
> In the Philippines there are two official languages: English and
> Tagalog. The Deaf are being taught with English as a "basis" but most
> parents don't know English. Many parents do know Tagalog or regional
> dialects that are often very similar to Tagalog.  We would really like
> to set up the dicitionary in a way that we can do it English - Tagalog
> - Sign Language and with a possibility to search in all three
> languages. Is there a way to do it in SW44 DOS? So far I did it just
> English - Sign Language. My husband suggested to just enter the
> Tagalog word next to the English word. That is better than nothing,
> but makes it hard when people want to look up a word using Tagalog as
> the search language. Any suggestions? By the way, Val, the lessons on
> how to use the ASL - English dictionary look very interesting, I hope
> to study them a bit more this afternoon. Thanks for all your work for
> us! Greetings from the Philippines, Nana

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

Charles Butler wrote:
> As far as I can tell, Nana, the SW 4.4 dictionary sorts on the English
> alphabet, not on English, so that if Tagalog is written with Roman
> characters, you can just enter it as you normally would.  Your
> dictionary will be a blend of English and Tagalog and Phillipino Sign
> Language, but the two spoken languages can both be entered.  You'd
> have to do two entries for each sign language entry, English/Tagalog,
> Tagalog/English, but at least the entries would be in there.