common criticisms of signwriting? Variability

Sat Nov 21 23:47:48 UTC 2009

> 3) SignWriting is too varied and has too much flexibility.  The number 
> of potential signs is infinite.  There are too many potential spellings 
> for the same sign. 

The number of potential words in any orthography is infinite, though English has some clear rules, for example "tl" does not exist an an initial cluster in English, though it does in other languages that use the Roman alphabet such as both Mexican Spanish and Mayan.  

Some time ago, I asked Valerie about this, and potentially you have addressed one point of discussion.  To me, if I look at a slide of a sign I should be able to write a sign on top of that slide in exactly one way, depending on the point of view of the reader. 

1) From above, from either side, from the back (expressive) and from the front (receptive).  That is not infinite numbers but numbers based specifically on point of view because one is writing a sign in space and are trying to make it as easy to understand surface or angle reactions.  At that point, I feel that there should be exactly four ways of writing a sign and no more.  We choose one (expressive) as the one most easily understood, but sometimes have to show a side view because the expressive view does not show details deemed necessary. 

2) Writing "boat" is a quandary as showing a 45 degree angle from anything but straight on front or straight on back does not show the angle of the hands joined along the long side of the palm.  Moving a boat up and down requires some very ticklish writing because one is showing precisely where that boat is moving, which spoken words cannot easily express.

3) Not having a facial contact arc in a writing system will not work in dictionary sorting unless the head is understood as having a locative feature that has not been written.  One has potentially at least 12 points of contact on the face alone, and any writing system will require having all of them as they can be shown, even in ASL as minimal pairs of meaning.  

4) Each piece of the ISWA is a relatively small set of minimal pairs which has been found in writing to be necessary to one or more languages.  Ethiopian sign language has at least 96 independent handshapes in its alphabet, so reduction of that language alone is not easily possible.  Each signed language may have a smaller subset of the ISWA, but the ISWA is based on a corpus of 40 signed languages, not one and its needs.  ASL has approximately 48 handshapes, but I have not seen sufficient linguistic corpus to speak to that, if linguistic research can determine the number of distinct handshapes per language quickly, then the ASL ISWA can be reduced, but that varies per language.    

5) In Brazil, just walking through, with the linguists to translate "Sign Writing for Everyday Use" from ASL to Libras we found at least three handshapes that had not been catalogued by the researchers at that point, the "carroca" handshape (used for the sign for carriage), the "noiva" handshape, used in one sign, that for "noiva", engaged (which is a hand held up extending the ring finger and supporting the ring finger at the second segment to show off an engagement ring), and "droga" which is the same handshape, but flicking off the end of the ring finger not the middle of the finger.  So sometimes the linguistic mechanism actually points out missing points in the system, not subtractions.  

6) For facial expressions, the German experiments have shown multiple heads showing mouth movements, which, so far, the Germans have found useful, but the ASL community of SignWriters have tended to not use as much.  So, I will concede, linguistic studies can point out flaws, foibles, and reductions, but my experience of the "professional linguists" has not been positive when they will not even "look" at SignWriting in the United States but continue to look at books that are more than 20 years old as if the system has not changed, improved, or had any examination.

Charles Butler

Again, could we take a proper look at the possibility of reducing the size
of the ISWA? Anything we could get rid of would be less to for readers and
writers to learn and would reduce the number of spelling possibilities.

There seem to me to be a number of ways to reduce the ISWA without
changing the appearance or readability of SignWriting. Reducing the ISWA
means less donkey work for everybody and more (because much easier to
create) SignWriting software and fonts.

> Most other criticisms are based on ignorance.

I agree that those three are the ones to address. But we should be
addressing them, not ignoring them.

Sandy

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