Do you want these handshapes in the IMWA?

[Charles Butler]

In reading the "specialized vocabulary" website, I longed for it to be in Sign Writing as English words are so subject to misinterpretation.  Fascinating how perspective changes when one actually has an unambiguous methodology to write a sign.

Charles Butler


Dan Parvaz <dparvaz at MAC.COM> wrote:
>I'd be curious to see how the Greeks do the letter
>"phi" to compare to yours.

If memory serves, it looks like the international manual alphabet's letter "f". Unfortunately, "f" has it's own mathematical function (pardon the pun) in most math environments. Math uses Greek, Hebrew, Cyrillic or increasingly Cabbalistic symbols (Zodiac, etc.) precisely because they've run *out* of Latin letters.

>Also the Hebrew "Aleph" for use in "Aleph-null" in infinity equations.

Prepare to be underwhelmed. In Israeli sign language, the letter "Aleph" looks just like an international "A". So if you're trying to use Cantor's symbols, I'd probably come up with an alternative: "HEBREW A", draw an aleph, fingerspell a-l-e-p-h or... point to the blackboard :-)

Here's a pretty good resource on ASL interpreting in math/physics, with the understanding that it *is* from one persepective:

http://www.theinterpretersfriend.com

Scroll down until you see "Interpreting for technical/specialized topics."

Cheers,

Dan.
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