[sw-l] Downloading the IMWA and SSS-1999

[Stuart Thiessen]

Hi! Those of us who are linguists or who approach things from a
systematic approach will likely consider that to be a simple enough
process. However, I am not sure if the rank-and-file deaf person will
analyze (or want to analyze) their movements to that degree. I don't
have a problem (if it can work) to have the computer automatically
assemble a handshape or symbol from components when I request that
handshape.  But to have the user type in all the components plus
positioning information may be too much to expect.

Thanks!

Stuart

On Dec 11, 2004, at 4:59, Sandy Fleming wrote:

> Hi Trevor!
>
>> As an ex-programmer looking to use IWMA for his signing I personally
>> would
>> still need to have more than one subset. Stuff I've done recently
>> involves
>> lexical borrowings (typically from ASL but I've just had to think
>> about
>> NZSL and AUSLAN to name but two) into BSL.
>
> This isn't too hard - we have, say, one subset for each sign language
> and
> you just make sure each subset you need is installed. You might have
> on your
> disk, say, one folder per subset (many of the symbols would exist in
> more
> than one folder) and then when the software needs to display a give
> symbol
> it looks through all the folders till it finds one that has the symbol
> it
> needs.
>
> If we stored components of symbols instead of whole symbols then more
> flexibility could be acheived with a small symbol set but there are
> various
> trade-offs here in terms of disk space, file size, amount of work
> required
> to develop the software, and ease of typing. Each programmer or team
> would
> have to decide on each factor for themselves.
>
> I think that the "component" approach might be an excellent way for a
> typist
> to produce heads, ie type the eye(s) they want, the mouth, eyebrows,
> nose
> they want, etc, rather than having to search for the whole head
> required
> down through a tree structure of categories.
>
> Not so sure of the advantages of breaking handshapes down into
> components,
> but maybe. A possible way of making handshapes fastter to type would
> be to
> make the four "universal" handshapes (spread, flat, fist, index)
> immediately
> accessible on the keyboard and somehow get at the other hands from
> these. I
> believe these four handshapes are thought to account for over 50% of
> the
> handshapes used in any given sign language in the world, so perhaps
> it's
> important for the typist to get immediate access to them from the
> keyboard.
>
> (Apologies to Stefan, who would naturally prefer the SW-DOS keyboard no
> matter what. Perhaps it could be supplied as an option!)
>
> Sandy
>
>
>
>