[sw-l] Details about the sign symbols

Tue Aug 26 15:39:21 UTC 2008

Dear Hansa,

I  can understand your confusion here.  When we use SignWriting all the time, we forget a certain background.

Every sign is assumed to be in a box of the shoulders to the waist.  This convention is understood if not explicitly written in every sign (just like we don't put the arms unless they are actually contacted or crossed in a sign.  Most signs if they are not explicitly on the face or lower part of the body take this median position.  

The contact stars are to the torso, about halfway between the shoulder and the waist.

I personally would write movement arrows in and out, but when directionality is not important, a simple touch will do.  

In depth linguistic study requires more body information, but it is readable as is if one assumes the torso. 

breath

Hasna Hocini <h_hocini at yahoo.fr> wrote: Hello Valerie,

Thank you very much for your answers and your availability to help!
At this step of the project, it is very important for us to understand very well SignWriting. That's why I asked about more documentation. I already read all the list mentioned in the last e-mail. That was very clear and I learned many thing, thank you again for your beautiful job! But in many cases it was impossible for me  to read the sign. For example, I noticed that sometimes, the Sign doesn't contain all the details to sign it. It requires perhaps the ASL knowledge? For the sign breath for example,  we have the configuration of the two hands and two stars (two contacts). How can we know where are the contacts made?

Thanks :-)

Hasna 

Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org> a écrit : SignWriting ListAugust  25, 2008

Hasna Hocini in French-Canada wrote:

Hello!
I'm Dr. Zaremba's student, Hasna, and for our project, we need a document that can help us understand SignWriting symbols in detail.

Val:
Hello Hasna and Dr. Zaremba! Hope your project is doing well....and of course I am happy to help you learn SignWriting symbols.

I understood that there is no document yet to document all the ISWA symbols? is right?

Val:
The International SignWriting Alphabet (ISWA 2008) is in beta right now, as you know. It has not been released yet, in its "official form". We are not yet using it, in SignPuddle. Right now SignPuddle 1.5, our current version, is using the IMWA, which is an older symbolset.

All of the  SignWriting symbols that we use right now in the IMWA, will also be in the new ISWA, when the day comes that we "switch from the IMWA to the ISWA", and the conversion will be automatic. The documents that you already have written in SignWriting, will look just the same, but working with the new ISWA design will make finding the symbols easier, and there will be more symbols that are needed to write SignWriting around the world...

So of course we have not finished the new documentation of the new ISWA, since the ISWA itself is not finished yet! One step at a time.

Meanwhile, you are using the IMWA right now, and we have plenty of documentation for the current symbols. I am happy to help you learn the symbols.

We found those documents on the web for the IMWA  symbols:

sw0008-About-SignWriting.pdf
sw0116-Lessons-SignWriting.pdf
Lessons-SignWrit-2002.pdf
SignSpelling-2004
sw0147-sss2004-Category1.pdf ... sw0147-sss2004-Category8.pdf
sw0158-sss2004-50-Groups
sw0190-IMWA-Categories

Val:
Those are very good choices, especially the sw0116-Lessons-SignWriting.pdf

That is the "Lessons in SignWriting Textbook". Did you know you can read the book in French and French-Swiss Sign Language? Many thanks to Anny in French-Switzerland, for these wonderful documents in French:

Lessons in SignWriting in French
http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/lessonsw/French.html

So I would suggest reading the books and literature found on the above web page.

But, we need to learn more about  the SignWriting symbols... The detailed meaning of each symbol. specially category 5, 6 and 7 : Dynamics, Punctuations and advanced sorting.

Val:
Sure. I will be happy to teach you Dynamics and Punctuation.

Do you have please any document that can help us more?

Val:
Yes. In the Lessons in SignWriting Textbook (English version) (sw0116-Lessons-SignWriting.pdf), go to:

Chapter 13: Dynamics
Chapter 14: Punctuation

If you have more questions specifically as to what a sign means, with those symbols, attach a picture of the sign you cannot read to an email message and send it to the List with your specific  question...

And in the SignSpelling-2004 document, it is said that location Markers are for research use.  Can you tell us please which research has worked on that markers?

The Location marker for research use are the SAME as the "advanced sorting" category in the new ISWA. We are just calling them "Advanced Sorting" now...

We do not write signs with these Advanced Sorting symbols....they are solely for placing detailed information to improve the accuracy of sorting dictionaries by SignWriting symbols...sometimes two signs can have the same SignSpelling, except for one tiny difference...maybe one sign has the hand slightly higher than the other sign. We can see that difference when we write, by simply placing the handshape a little higher in the sign, and the reader reads that  visually without needing any special information...it is read quickly and simply. But when the computer wants to sort these two signs by Sign-Symbol-Sequence, the height-difference needs to be stated for the computer to know which one comes first and which one should come second in the dictionary, so these Advanced Sorting symbols, such as Height Location, are used in the computerized SignSpelling Sequence data to state which one comes first and which one comes second in the listing of signs of SignSymbols...

This has nothing to do with Translation work between languages...the Advanced Sorting symbols are ONLY used for sorting dictionaries by Sign Symbols...

I hope this helped -

Val ;-)

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