[sw-l] brother and sister

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
February 2, 2005

Sandy Fleming wrote:
> But when you say "the mouth" do you mean using Norwegian oral language
> mouth
> patterns (ie lipspeaking) or do you mean native Norwegian Sign
> Language lip
> patterns?

Sandy - The reason there are so many symbols in the IMWA, the
Internationl Movement Writing Alphabet, is that every country and every
sign language has their own culture. BSL mouth movements are not the
same as in other countries, and that is why SignWriting is so
flexible...people can choose to write as they wish, depending on their
culture...because with the IMWA they have a huge symbolset to choose
from...

Later we will have country-specific symbolsets...But that has to come
later, after I complete the International symbolset...that is
equivalent to the IPA...the International Phonetic Alphabet...versus
our everyday writing with the Roman alphabet, that does not write all
sounds at all...

So why not make your new computer program just for BSL for now? You may
have fewer headaches! You should see the beautiful signed languages of
the middle east and far east...some of them are enormously different
than ASL and BSL!

Val ;-)