Workshop on phonetic notation of SLs

Wed May 21 20:54:54 UTC 2008

Going to the man's own work I find this illuminating note:

A: Hopefully SLIPA can be modified to handle any feature of any signed language.  This doesn't mean that it can currently handle every feature. Why? To put it bluntly, my knowledge of signed languages is limited. I know not enough ASL, and only what I've read from books or learned first-hand from Dr. Perlmutter. Unlike with spoken languages, you can't simply go to a community college and learn BSL, or SLN, or TSL, or JSL, or SSL. I don't even know if you could do this at Gallaudet University. (No, I see that you can't: "Although the department does not offer formal instruction in foreign sign, it does introduce students to selected elements of foreign sign language." Go here for their page on foreign language instruction, from which the preceding quote was extracted.) Further, cross-linguistic studies of the sign languages of the world are all but absent from the field of linguistics.

Only SignWriting can truly be used "easily" to compare movement to movement sign for sign between signed languages.  Some of the finer comparisons that, for example, appeared at the Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research conference would have been MUCH more easy to understand had they been written in SignWriting.  The comparisons would have been instant, not going on for pages.

Does a sign repeat the handshape, or the articulation, or the same shape over several places.  SignWriting does this quickly and easily.  Changing articulation points in the SLIPA system is the most complex I've imagined, and I honestly feel that Gallaudet has deliberately stuck itself into a linear landscape with language because they have never thought of actually programming a writing system in two dimensions.  Only SignWriting does that, and now with the Wikipedia we may be able to show people communicating back and forth in their own signed languages.

The interface to the system is still mouse-based, and I wish it were keyboarded, because then one would begin to memorize where things were and could type as fast as one could sign.

Charles

Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org> wrote: SignWriting ListMay 21, 2008

Hello Ingvild!
Thanks for this message....This event mentioned below is related to the Scott Liddell and Robert Johnson system from the 1980's...it is a linguistically-based notation system ...nothing like SignWriting and could not be used for writing Sign Language Literature..it is not a true writing system for daily use...I met the inventors years ago....when I taught a workshop on SignWriting at Gallaudet University in 1984, I had lunch with Scott Lilddell and Bob Johnson...they teach linguistics at the Linguistics dept at Gallaudet ...at least they did at the time...and it is not like the Stokoe system either...a different system...It does not have the same purpose as SignWriting, but it would be fun to have some SignWriting participants at their meeting - 

For those new on our List, SignWriting is used as a linguistic notation system too, but it was developed mostly for everyday use as a real daily writing system for signers...so we can write stories and books in written signed languages, written by the users of the languages, and not just for research or specific linguistic projects...SignWriting incorporates writing facial expressions and body movement and more important features that make it possible to write storytelling and write directly in the movements of signed languages...

Thanks for the posting, Ingvild!

Val ;-)

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On May 21, 2008, at 12:36 PM, Ingvild Roald wrote:

 If anyone in Europe, or elsewhere, who knows SignWriting and are into sign lingustics would attend, I think that would be useful. The topics are certainly of interest, the notation system used I don't know about ... Seems as if Someone at Gallaudet are reinventing the weel.

Ingvild, Norway (not myself well enough to attend, otherwise I would)

Hello all,

We are pleased to inform you that Johnson's seminar in Paris-11 from
June 9 to 12 will be entirely accessible in British Sign Language.

For more information go to:
   http://perso.limsi.fr/filhol/bob-seminar

See you there maybe.
Best regards,
Michael Filhol.
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