TrueType Font for Mundbildschrift?

Thu May 10 23:36:47 UTC 2007

SignWriting List
May 10, 2007

Hello Stefan, Stuart, Kelly Jo and Everyone -

I just mailed your DVD today, Stefan...sorry it took so long for me  
to get to the Post Office!

Thank you for this explanation, below....I am happy to read it..I too  
need to understand better, the differences between Mundbilder and  
Mundbildschrift...

And I am impressed and happy to know, that you are having success  
with both...

It would actually help if we could find an English word-equivalent  
for Mundbild, and another English word that means  
Mundbildschrift...but I actually do not know what English words to  
give it...and it should be you who makes that decision anyway ;-))

So someday let's try to find an English name for those two German  
terms...it would help us all understand it better...

When you say GebaerdenSchrift, I assume you mean SignWriting! At  
least the term SignWriting got a German translation that works for  
you and I think that is very helpful...

In the same way in reverse, we need English terms for Mundbild and  
Mundbildschrift. The exact translation: Mouth-picture and Mouth- 
picture-writing doesn't work in English somehow...

But no rush...we can talk about this when we continue to translate  
your textbook from German to English -

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Val ;-)

--------

On May 10, 2007, at 3:23 PM, Stefan Wöhrmann wrote:

> Hi Stuart, Valerie and friends, -
>
> well I am afraid that it is not easy to explain, what  
> Mundbildschrift is
> about. Valerie do you remember our many emails about the difference  
> between
> "Mundbildschrift" a sound-oriented symbolsystem on one side and the
> "Mundbilder in der GebaerdenSchrift" a visual oriented symbol- 
> system  on the
> other side. Perhaps you may want to add some lines ....
>
> What I am doing with my Mundbilder in GebaerdenSchrift is exactly  
> what you
> describe: Looking at the Mundbilder in GebaerdenSchrift people  
> understand
> the "guessing game" of lipreading since there is no 1 to 1  
> relationship
> between "sounds while speaking words" and symbols of the  
> "Mundbilder" Just
> in contrary you are faced with the problem that a given Mundbild  
> might lead
> up to three completely different sounds - some sounds -produced in  
> the back
> of your mouth are not even mentioned -
> So people understand much much better that it does not make sense  
> to leave
> young deaf students alone with lipreading (in order to force them  
> to pay
> more attention to lipmovement which should lead to a high level of  
> spoken
> language competence) while well educated and smart adult DEAF  
> people will
> allowed to rely on interpreters-
> In fact this is a big problem to me: the better the Deaf person is  
> already
> introduced to vocabulary and grammar of the spoken language the  
> easier it
> becomes for her and him to ask for support by an interpreter in  
> order to be
> sure to understand the part of the hearing speaker exactly.
> Contrary the less words a deaf child knows, the less it is familiar  
> with
> grammar and register of spoken language teacher and parents want  
> him to
> depend on lipreading!
>
> Well - my development of Mundbildschrift has almost nothing to do with
> SignWriting. Mundbildschrift is a tool to support deaf children in  
> their
> difficult task to improve articulation and to learn vocabulary of  
> the spoken
> language. In fact in the long run hearing children with a weaknes in
> spelling will take much advantage out of that ...
>
> The "Mundbilder in der GebaerdenSchrift" as you can find them in my
> GebaerdenSchrift documents is a whole different story. Just as you  
> mentioned
> - whenever you look at German SignLanguage performance you may  
> become aware
> of the fact that the voiceless movements of the lips are part of the
> message. In fact this is so tremendously important (from my point  
> of view)
> that without this information there is another guessing game.  
> Perhaps you
> know that we do not use the fingerspelling as much as you do in ASL.
>
> It is an interesting fact that these lipmovements are difficult to
> understand if there is no signing with the hands and that the  
> signing of the
> hands is sometimes difficult to understand if there are no  
> lipmovements - so
> the combination of both parts of the message is the clue to a very  
> quick and
> easy understanding.
>
> Ha - and even in Germany there has been ( or still is??) a severe  
> discussion
> about signing with or without lipmovements.
>
> But I am a teacher and working where I am living Deaf people  
> perform in this
> combination. So as a person who works so hard to support my deaf  
> students in
> developing knowledge in the different subjects at school I have to  
> take this
> aspect of German Sign Language into account. And I do so and this  
> leads to a
> special style of writing GebaerdenSchrift with these many faces to  
> give an
> idea of what the signer is doing with his mouth.
>
> Of course besides this kind of mouthing we can see lots of mimic  
> and mouth
> gestures that are not related to any voiceless articulation ... and
> especially in transcriptions of poems and storytelling I try to  
> cover that
> as well.
>
> Thank you very much for your comment - and from time to time we  
> will discuss
> Mundbilder again - ha - even though it seems to be a political  
> question on
> what is allowd or what seems to be accepted from the Deaf cultural  
> point of
> view.
>
> Have a great day
>
> Stefan ;-)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> [mailto:owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu] Im Auftrag von Stuart  
> Thiessen
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 10. Mai 2007 22:19
> An: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> Betreff: Re: [sw-l] TrueType Font for Mundbildschrift?
>
> I understand that many European sign languages do depend on mouthings
> to distinguish different signs so I think Stefan's development of the
> Mundbildschrift is great for that.
>
> One caution though (as a Deaf person who has/does use lipreading) ...
> in English, it is my understanding that we only get about 30% of the
> information from lipreading. 70% comes from context and guessing.
> Examples of common misunderstandings are "maybe" vs. "baby", "olive
> juice" vs. "I love you", "fifteen" vs. "fifty", etc. It is difficult
> to catch the visual difference between them. Often the problems come
> when trying to visually distinguish voiced and unvoiced consonants
> where there could be a misunderstanding, or sounds which may not have
> a clear visual expression (an example possibly in German might be the
> 'ch' sound which I understand to have 2 different pronunciations).
> Cognitively, it may be possible to process that there is a
> difference, but I myself feel uncertain that it would necessarily
> transfer to easier lipreading. I guess that's a study for someone
> interested in that topic! :) So this will certainly help to match
> sounds to the visual expression of them. I wouldn't want hearing
> people (who are not aware of these issues) to assume that this could
> enhance lipreading to the point of eliminating the need for sign
> language or an interpreter. I am sure that neither you nor Stefan
> would think that, but I am just saying this as we think of a hearing
> audience that may include people who are not aware of these things.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Stuart
>
> On May 10, 2007, at 13:25, Valerie Sutton wrote:
>
>> SignWriting List
>> May 10, 2007
>>
>> Stefan -
>> Do you have a TrueType font for Mundbildschrift?
>>
>> I am sure you probably thought of this long ago!!
>>
>> The typist could type German words, or English words, and get the
>> symbols for the Mundbildschrift instead?
>>
>> Does Mundbildschrift have a one-to-one correspondence with each
>> letter on the keyboard?
>>
>> A little like typing fingerspelling with our TrueType fonts...you
>> could type a spoken language and the fingerspelling symbols appear...
>>
>> Fingerspelling Fonts
>> http://www.signwriting.org/catalog/sw214.html
>>
>>
>> If you have a Mundbildschrift TrueType font, could we receive
>> permission in some way, to allow people to use it? Whatever you
>> want...
>>
>> I told people about Mundbildschrift yesterday at my presentation
>> and there was interest in it...
>>
>> I think a way to type Mundbildschrift, by typing spoken language on
>> a normal keyboard, could spread the idea that lip reading can be
>> read visually on paper now..
>>
>> Val ;-)
>>
>>
>> Mundbildschrift
>> http://www.signwriting.org/archive/docs2/sw0124-DE- 
>> Mundbildschrift.pdf
>>
>
>
>
>