introducing myself to sw-l

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
June 21, 2004

Manfred Sailer wrote:
>  My name is Manfred Sailer. I am a 35 year old hearing linguist at the 
> university of Tuebingen, Southern Germany (formal syntax and 
> semantics, computational linguistics). I started learning German Sign 
> Language (DGS) in October 2002 - just for fun and because I thought it 
> would be good for a linguist to know a sign language. After looking 
> around for writing systems for DGS a while, I decided that it would be 
> worth the effort to learn SignWriting., because it looked like a 
> system which is really actively used. … and there is so much great 
> material which makes it easy to get started! Material about the system 
> in general and, especially for DGS, Stefan Woehrmann's site. I was 
> really amazed how easy it was to get the basics of the system and to 
> carry on from that - thanks to Valery's fantastic course book and to 
> Stefan's huge DGS dictionary for sw dos! At the moment I am mainly 
> using SignWriting to write down vocabulary I learn in my DGS classes. 
> It's a lot of fun to learn this beautiful language and to be able to 
> write it down! I have been on the SWList for quite a while by now 
> (since November 03) and have followed the contributions with great 
> interest. Since I am not working on sign languages, I don't have much 
> to contribute myself, though. Still, I wanted to use the occasion to 
> say that I am deeply impressed by all the work on SignWriting and by 
> the supportive and cooperative community! Manfred.
>
>  PS: isn't it funny: before I decided to become a linguist, I had been 
> trained in  classical ballet for more than 10 years (which also 
> included a basic introduction to the Benesh dance notation system). So 
> I can really appreciate all aspects of the Sutton writing systems!
>

Thank you, Manfred, for this really nice statement...I am glad you are 
enjoying using SignWriting....And thank you to Stefan Woehrmann, for 
his fantastic web site, teaching materials, and dictionaries:

For other List members, visit this web site:
Gebaerdenschrift
http://www.gebaerdenschrift.de/

And yes, SignWriting List members are soooo enthusiastic and working in 
so many related fields...

May I ask...I need some help with translating a document from German to 
English. The translation into English does not have to be perfect, but 
just a first draft, and then I can make the English fit the diagrams of 
the article after the initial translation is done...But that first 
draft is what takes me hours, because my German is not that good, and 
Stefan is very busy and doesn't have the time to help...I had planned 
to pay a translator, but I haven't had the money. The document in 
German can be downloaded from the web:

Das Zeichen
http://www.SignWriting.org/archive/docs2/sw0125-DE-DasZeichen-2003.pdf

It is Stefan's wonderful article in the University of Hamburg's Journal 
Das Zeichen, that was published last November. I have permission from 
the Journal editors, and from Stefan, to translate it into English and 
to post both the German and English versions on the web...At the moment 
I have only the German version posted, because I have not had the time 
to do the English translation yet myself...

If you are too busy, Manfred, do you know of a student who could help 
me?...I would ask them to download the article and then just write the 
English quickly into an email message and send it to me privately and 
then I can place the English into the document, create a PDF and post 
it...And of course I would give credit to all those who worked on it...

Thanks for your help -

Val ;-)
Sutton at SignWriting.org