SignWriting Terminology
CWren at DOE.K12.GA.US
CWren at DOE.K12.GA.US
Tue Mar 21 20:51:14 UTC 2006
I'm a bit confused by equating the Roman alphabet to SignWriting. The
Roman alphabet is a sequence of ordered symbols. SignWriting is a system
for writing signed languages. I think the Roman alphabet is similar to
the IMWA. And I think that SignWriting is similar to what is taught in
English class.
I understand what Val means. The Roman alphabet is a system of symbols
that can write several different languages. Not all of them, but a good
number of them. SignWriting is a system of symbols that writes signed
languages. The IMWA is a bigger thing that writes more than just signed
languages, it writes any and all movement. Just like the international
phonetic alphabet can write sounds, not just those in the certain subset
of languages written using the Roman alphabet.
What happens in English class... I take it you mean the writing part? Not
the "this is a noun, this is a verb" part? ::smile:: In English class
they teach you how to put letters into words, then words into sentences,
sentences into paragraphs/essays/etc... That would be SignText, not
SignWriting.
---------------------------------
Cherie Wren
GSD Staff Interpreter
232 Perry Farm Rd
Cave Spring, GA 30124
706-777-2328
706-766-0766 Cell
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Re: [sw-l] SignWriting Terminology
Hi Val,
Thanks for starting a message on terminology. I'm not using the
terminology correctly, so this is very helpful.
I'm a bit confused by equating the roman alphabet to SignWriting. The
roman alphabet is a sequence of ordered symbols. SignWriting is a system
for writing signed languages. I think the roman alphabet is similar to
the IMWA. And I think that SignWriting is similar to what is taught in
English class.
I'm confused by what SignSpelling actually means. Is SignSpelling what
you use, what you do, or what you get? Is SignSpelling for writing or
sorting? I thought that SignSpelling was a subset of SignWriting that
encompasses how to write sign and how to sequentially list the symbols in
a sign for sorting.
The word spelling has 2 definitions. 1) The act of the person who spells
a word. 2) The way a word is spelled. It seems to me that SignSpelling
is the system of rules that a person uses while he is spelling(1) a sign
which results in a spelling(2) of a sign. Spelling is both his action(1)
and his result(2), but he uses the rules of SignSpelling for guidance
while he works.
Many definitions of "spell" mention the sequential order of the letters,
but that is because of cultural bias. The word spell comes from older
words that mean "to talk" or "to relate".
Middle English spellen
Old French espeller
Old English spellian
It is interesting to note that "gospel" is derived from "good talk".
If I was reading a document, I would hope that the words (or signs) were
spelled correctly. With most spoken languages, a word's spelling is used
for sorting because words are spelled sequentially. However, the symbols
in a signs do not appear sequentially, but in 2 dimensional space. I
consider this 2 dimensional representation of a sign to be the sign's
spelling. If we had a Sign Spelling Bee, the contestants would watch a
person perform a sign and would probably use a blackboard to write the
sign.
But this brings us to the question of how to sort signs in a dictionary.
We need a way to write the symbols of a sign in a sequential order. The
SignSpelling Guidelines 2004 is a great reference for this (
http://www.signwriting.org/archive/docs2/sw0145-SignSpelling-2004.pdf).
And that's why I was using the terms spelling and sequence when talking
about a sign. A sign's spelling is what you would find in a sign language
text. A sign's sequence (or sort order) is a list of a sign's symbols
that can be used for sorting.
-Steve
Valerie Sutton wrote:
SignWriting List
March 21, 2006
Dear SW List Members!
Recently someone asked me to explain SignWriting Terminology (the English
words I use to describe different aspects of SignWriting).
So I will create a chart of the terms I use in English. I hope we can
translate these terms into other spoken languages later.
Here is a beginning...More will be coming later...continued next
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