AW: [sw-l] New Handshapes for the IMWA

[Stefan Woehrmann]

Hi Valerie -

I did not understand this last sentence:

"So the base of the hand is determined by the shape of the lowest
finger...If the lowest finger is straight forward, then the base of the
symbol is an Angle or Hinge..."

( or is this a "typo" and you wanted to write square?)

>From my point of view:

There is a continuum - from the flat hand - thumb outside - to the closed
fist -

since we write the claw- hand with the "house"- basic handshape and the
fingers added with curved lines - It came to my mind to keep in line with
this but just change the look of the fingers - thumb, index - straight
lines, middle - a little bit curved, ring finger more curved, baby finger
almost bent to a tight "U" -

As you said the baby finger does not touch the palm - I understood your
system that in this case - and if there is no baby-finger-thumb contact
this spelling would be ok?

What do you think? See my attached variation1 ;-)

Thanks for your patience!

Stefan ;-)







-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
[mailto:owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu]Im Auftrag von Valerie Sutton
Gesendet: Montag, 22. November 2004 15:33
An: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
Betreff: Re: [sw-l] New Handshapes for the IMWA

SignWriting List
November 22, 2004

On Nov 22, 2004, at 4:51 AM, Charles Butler wrote:
> I'm curious in this new shape, what happened to the little finger?  In
> all other IMWA shapes, if all the fingers are visible and form a part
> of the shape, they are indicated by lines.  The little finger is not
> folded into the hand in the photograph.  Where did it go?

Handshapes are created by finding the lowest finger in the shape, and
using that lowest finger as the base of the shape.

No handshape that has a square for a base can have all five fingers
showing, since the very definition of the square is that at least one
finger is down and touching the palm of the hand...so the fifth finger,
the baby finger in this case, is the lowest finger, and with a square
base it means that the baby finger is touching the base of the hand
creating the square.

In the photo, the baby finger does not touch the palm of the hand. So
technically, that would be a circle-base, since the definition of a
circle-base is the lowest finger is bent down quite a bit, but does not
touch the palm of the hand...So that circle-base symbol would be
another handshape added to the IMWA...which is another 96 symbols
because of all the flops and rotations...so I was hoping that Sandy
would accept a handshape that is already in the IMWA with the square
base...and it would be "close enough"...

So the base of the hand is determined by the shape of the lowest
finger...If the lowest finger is straight forward, then the base of the
symbol is an Angle or Hinge...




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