[sw-l] SWDB - Linguistic SignWriting Database

[Sandy Fleming]

Antônio Carlos,

Ah, I see it now - I missed the little 1..infinity things  :)

Thanks for explaining!

Looking further into this, I do have another concern about SWML, though. In
the "Lessons in SignWriting 2002" manual, the example signs often overlap
opaquely. However, examining the SWML DTD version 1 and the SWML-S DTD I
can't see how the z-layer is handled. How is the fact that one hand is on
top of another expressed?

I notice that the gifs used for the Puddle dictionaries are completely
transparent, so this couldn't be expressed in Puddle anyway. Is it
unimportant or do we really need three-colour gifs so that one colour can be
designated as transparent for use by software?

Hopefully I'm wrong again, but I still need an explanation!

Sandy

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> [mailto:owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu]On Behalf Of
> rocha at ATLAS.UCPEL.TCHE.BR
> Sent: 22 October 2004 18:08
> To: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> Subject: RE: [sw-l] SWDB - Linguistic SignWriting Database
>
>
> Sandy,
>
>   Gladly to us, you read the schema wrongly :-)
>
>   Translations can be in any number of sign languages (and any number of
> oral languages too :-)
>
>   And signs are identified sequentially by numbers. That is, they are not
> identified by gloss, not even for basic search: signs have to be search
> as signs.
>
>   Sign languages treated as languages in themselves in context of
> computational systems has been my major concern even before I met
> SignWriting. By the way, that is the reason I started to search for
> something like SignWriting, before I knew it :-)
>
>   All the best,
>
>   Antônio Carlos
>
>
> > Antônio Carlos,
> >
> >>    We are calling it SWDB - Linguistic SignWriting Database (but we are
> >> not sure yet this is the best name).
> >>
> >>    The SWML format, called SWDB, has been added to the SWML site
> >>
> >>       http://swml.ucpel.tche.br
> >>
> >> so you can check it. It's an XML schema, not a DTD, but it is
> shown as a
> >> diagram. The diagram is in the PDF format.
> >
> > It's possible that I'm reading the schema wrongly, but if I'm reading it
> > correctly I have a serious objection to it.
> >
> > It seems to assume that the sign language will have an oral language
> > translation.
> >
> > Why shouldn't there be a linguistic database with translations to sign
> > languages?
> >
> > For example an ASL database for BSL users who have poor English or don't
> > want to work with English as a go-between for the two sign languages?
> >
> > This is something I've thought of before - at the moment glosses for use
> > by
> > editors and dictionary software are always in oral languages
> but it should
> > be possible to supply sign language glosses for those who want to work
> > directly from one sign language to another.
> >
> > This makes sense to me, as oral languages are quite "foreigh" to sign
> > languages and only being able to work between a sign and oral language
> > when
> > trying to learn a foreign sign language seems to me like an English
> > speaker
> > trying to work with Dutch but only having a Dutch-Japanese and
> > English-Japanese dictionary.
> >
> > In fact it's worse because imagine I wanted to access Brazilian Sign
> > Language - I'd have to go through English and Portuguese to get at the
> > Brazilian Sign Language instead of just going direct from British Sign
> > Language to Brazilian!
> >
> > While not many people might want to produce an authoritative
> > British-Brazilian SL dictionary, signers who want to learn or teach a
> > foreign sign language should at least be able to set up a database like
> > this
> > for their own or classroom use. And how about researchers comparing sign
> > languages?
> >
> > I hope either I've read the schema wrongly, or you or Juliano find this
> > suggestion helpful!
> >
> > Sandy
> >
> >
>
>
> -----------------------------
> Antônio Carlos da Rocha Costa
> Escola de Informática - UCPel
>
>
>
>