shorthand

[Sandy Fleming]

Hello again, Val and SW list  :)

I don't know about that handwriting course - all it seems to say is practice
writing fast! Fair enough, we'd have to do that no matter what the writing
system was like, but it's a far cry from the stuff on page 9 of the "Writing
by Hand" document at http://www.signwriting.org/library/pdf/index.html which
looks really writable, although I can't read it!

I hope I don't sound ungrateful - I know you're working hard and trying hard
to help us  :)

Sandy

> -----Original Message-----
> From: SignWriting List [mailto:SW-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA]On Behalf Of
> Valerie Sutton
> Sent: 12 September 2003 19:27
> To: SW-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA
> Subject: Re: shorthand
>
>
> SignWriting List
> September 12, 2003
>
> Dear SW List, Sandy and Tini -
> The majority of SignWriting users around the world, as far as I can
> tell, write SignWriting by hand. Computer users are the minority...
>
> Since SignWriting was developed before the personal computer was
> invented, that makes sense!
>
> Shorthand is not used everyday by people who write English. They use
> handwriting, even though Pittman Shorthand and Gregg Shorthand systems
> exist...
>
> Same with SignWriting...We have a successful shorthand system already
> developed in the 1980's:
>
> Shorthand
> http://www.SignWriting.org/forums/linguistics/ling005.html
>
> However, that is not what is used for daily use around the world. For
> daily use, we use SignWriting Handwriting...there is a course on the
> web...
>
> Handwriting
> http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/cursive/curs001.html
>
> Val ;-)
>
> ---------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Friday, September 12, 2003, at 10:28 AM, Sandy Fleming wrote:
>
> > Hi Tini and everyone,
> >
> >>> Sandy you were talking about shorthand in Sign Writing. I am very
> > interested in it too. When I am asking a deaf person here in town for
> > advise
> > I often whished I knew short hand. I have done some scribbling myself,
> > see
> > attachment, but it is far from perfect.<<
> >
> > I like the idea of just not drawing the flat hand shape - I find this
> > the
> > most difficult shape to draw, especially when it's at an angle. This
> > won't
> > work very well when there aren't enough fingers, will it? The "flat
> > hand,
> > open thumb" shape will just be a little tick! Or have you thought of a
> > way?
> > You could draw a straight line through the knuckles to show the hand
> > in the
> > floor plane, I think that would work for that.
> >
> > The idea of just not drawing the hand and just drawing the fingers is
> > really
> > good, though, especially since fingers are so easy to draw  :)  It
> > gave me
> > an idea for writing pronouns just as fingers (see the attached scan for
> > BSL). I think this is good, because even although it only applies to a
> > few
> > words, these are words that are used very often in BSL - I mean people
> > point
> > all the time when they're signing! Another good thing is that it's not
> > really departing from Val's notation at all, it's just missing out
> > elements
> > that aren't really needed for comprehension.
> >
> > This is a bit like in English where very frequent words are sometimes
> > spelled more simply, eg "be, we, me" rather than "bee, wee, mee". And
> > then
> > there are shorthand systems where you just write the strokes for "b,
> > w, m".
> >
> > (It seems that I change my hand orientation when I point to the right
> > - this
> > may just be me!)
> >
> > Does it make sense? Any other ideas?
> >
> > Sandy
> > <pronouns.gif>
>