Voting on PUDLs dictionary

[Charles Butler]

In theory, ASL gloss remains current because ASL gloss is a pidgin between English and ASL.

However, the advantage SignWriting has above ASL gloss is that it is an accurate rendering of actual dialectical ASL (or any other signed language).  The grammar of ASL is somewhat stable, but rendering into ASL gloss (to me) fractures the language by saying that "ASL gloss" is the "true" language, not the ASL (or Libras, or DSL, or whatever) that one is striving for.

One must always, eventually, go to the original signed language, if translating, and examine its own idiom, not a "theoretical ASL gloss".

The example of "birthday" is a good one.  Is it a "whole sign" (cake with candles) or (pull one's ear) or a concept sign "day of birth".  Each comes from a different thought process, and ASL gloss will not say that, only SignWriting will convey that.

Just my opinion.

Charles Butler

Stephen Slevinski <slevin at PUDL.INFO> wrote:
Hey Val,

You asked... "What happens if there is more than one sign, that represents
a gloss? Which one do you choose?"

Are you talking about a sign that has more than one variation? Such as the
infamous "help" sign? I've reduced the number of variations for "help" from
24 to 33. You can view my current efforts at:
http://www.pudl.info/dictionary/search.php?search=help&type=any

But back to your question. If there is more than one variations for a sign,
you can use signname_# to access any variation. Such as help_2, help_24.

An example.
Let's say that you want to define me-help-you. A possible gloss definition
would be simply "me help you". But the second variation of help would be a
better selection, so the gloss definition could be "me help_2 you".

My current dictionary is a prototype of what the real dictionary could be
like. Ideally, I would be able to handle multiple dialects. So there would
be multiple signs for birthday, and each sign would have a dialect
associated with it. Then if you wanted to display the Happy Birthday song,
you would select the appropriate dialect and the translation utility would
choose the appropriate signs for the dialect.

There are many advantages to ASL gloss. The biggest two are...
==The SignWriting is always current
==The SignWriting can be viewed in any dialect

-Stephen Slevinski
www.pudl.info~
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/sw-l/attachments/20040328/d4d936f9/attachment.htm>