FW: Finnish Towns

[Charles Butler]

I got your .gifs of the handshapes just fine, Sandy.

To the list, here are the groups that those two handshapes fit in, Group 3
and Group 5a.  I believe that in Group 3, it's the first one in the second
row, and in Group 5a, the same.

ASL uses the first one for "squirrel" and Libras (Brazilian Sign Language)
uses the second one for cat.


Charles

----- Original Message -----
From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at FLEIMIN.DEMON.CO.UK>
To: <SW-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA>
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 4:14 AM
Subject: FW: Finnish Towns


> Dear List,
>
> This message didn't seem to come through properly with the .gif, so I'm
> resending without the .gif...
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sandy Fleming [mailto:sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk]
> Sent: 09 October 2003 07:59
> To: SignWriting List
> Subject: RE: Finnish Towns
>
>
> Val wrote:
>
> > Sure. And I understand this has to be worked through...the only problem
> > I have is I am continually overwhelming people with "too many symbols",
> > so I am trying to find a way to solve that problem, making a symbol-set
> > that works for "everyday use"...
>
> Remember we had a challenge to list the handshapes for classifiers in our
> languages? I've been a bit distracted from this recently so only got so
far
> with it. However, while working on it I had an idea for reducing the
number
> of handshapes required. It actually only avoids having to use a few
> handshapes, but these are especially subtle or awkward ones that tend not
to
> be in the straightforward set of symbols.
>
> What happened was that before getting to work on the classifiers I decided
> it would be a good idea to make up a SW list of all the handshapes
actually
> used in BSL. The Black Book (a big fat paper BSL dictionary that we have
> here) already lists all the handshapes used in BSL but there were a couple
> that weren't in the SSS.
>
> I've attached scans of the handshapes. The first one is used at the
> beginning of signs for "walking casually" or "snake flicking out its
> tongue" - it's always followed by flicking out the index and middle
fingers
> to show legs or forked tongue.
>
> The second isn't so clearly drawn but is intended to show a handshape
that's
> almost like a spread hand with the thumb forward, but the fingers are
locked
> straight and _very slightly_ angled at the knuckle joint. It's used in BSL
> to indicate light sources and sprays of water.
>
> At first I was tempted to use approximate handshapes for those, ie a
circle
> hand with the tips of the thumb and middle and index finger touching, and
> just a regular spread hand with the thumb forward. The problematic shapes
> seemed like "more tense" versions of these handshapes.
>
> However, having slept on it, it occured to me that these handshapes are
> _only_ used as classifiers (or, strictly speaking, proforms). Now, in SW
> classifiers are generally shown with a tension mark (~) to indicate
> classifier dynamics. So I decided I _could_ use the approximate, more
> relaxed handshapes for those, because the fact that they are actually the
> tense, classifier versions of the handshape will be shown in the SW by
> having the tension mark against them. So by using the tension mark to
> indicate classifier-specific handshapes I can avoid asking for still more
> handshapes to be added to SW DOS/Java.
>
> I wonder if this is a principle that can be applied in other sign
> languages - ie, that sometimes particularly tense, awkward handshapes are
> used only for classifiers and so the more usual relaxed form plus a
tension
> mark can be used to indicate them?
>
> Sandy
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