Sign Proccessing Software

[Dan Parvaz]

> this would mean that the name Sign Language, would have to be changed to
> Word Language, and the term SignWriting would have to be changed to
> WordWriting...and would deaf people really recognize that we are talking
> about signed languages

That would be true if "Sign" and "Word" actually referred to the same
things in different modalities. But they don't the counterpart to "Sign"
is "Speech" So the counterpart of a signed language is a spoken langauge.
Sign processing then is like speech processing... which has nothing to do
with what SW does. Both signed and spoken languages have words. The ASL
word for "ASL word" is what we usually gloss as SIGN, which is also used
to mean "sign language." But to yank that into English in the form of
"sign processing" is to buy into the gloss.

The Navajo word for langauge is "bizaad", which also means "words". So
"Dine bizaad" = "The Navajo/Dine, their words". But no one would call a
text processor of Navajo a "langauge" processor or a "bizaad" processor.

Anyway, there's a counterpoint. Bet you always wanted one of those :-)

-Dan.