Ordering Signs

Thu Nov 26 07:08:37 UTC 2009

Hoi,
Given that SignWriting is a recent invention and, given that thought has
been given by the creators of the scripts to collation, there can be and
there is a sorting order that is defined on the level of the script. I have
learned about its existence in the past but the precise details escape me. I
am sure that either Steve or Valerie will be able to fill us in after their
thanksgiving celebration.
Thanks,
      Gerard

2009/11/26 Charles Butler <chazzer3332000 at yahoo.com>

> I would agree that they don't HAVE to be, particularly with signed
> languages that don't have the same character set, but I feel that there
> ought to be a universal ordering system that has some logic to it (straight,
> curved, bent, crossed) that would be a natural progression through the
> handshapes, ditto with lines and curves, facial expressions, etc.  It's the
> whole corpus that would be in order, so that if a handshape is used, one
> knows where it is, if it is not, it is skipped.  English and Spanish both
> use the Roman alphabet, and though English does not have a ch, an ll, there
> is an order that can be compared sound for sound.
>
> Charles
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>
> *To:* SignWriting List <sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu>
> *Sent:* Thu, November 26, 2009 12:19:14 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [sw-l] SignWriting on Bing - Improvements to Ordering Signs
>
> Hoi,
> Sorry, but you are wrong. SignWriting is currently not part of Unicode and,
> it would be in an associated standard, the CLDR where you would find the
> information about the collation or sorting order of languages using in
> SignWriting. As it is, the collation of languages using the Latin script
> each have their own collation because they are not the same. The Dutch
> collation has a character that is nowadays written with two characters, "ij"
> tha has its place after the "w" for instance. Consequently the collation or
> sorting order CAN be the same for every sign language written in
> SignWriting, it however does not need to be that way.
> Thanks,
>      Gerard
>
> 2009/11/25 Trevor Jenkins <bslwannabe at gmail.com>
>
>> Hi Charles,
>>
>> I think the exact opposite! It is not that SignWriting (or HamNoSys or
>> Stokoe) needs to accommodate Bing, Google, Wolfram Alpha or so later search
>> engine. Instead the search engines need to change to accommodate SignWriting
>> (and everyother non-Latinate script). We should not change the order in
>> which signs are transcribed -- we do not alter the order of written lexemes
>> so that search engines can retrieve web pages or emails. What we do need is
>> for the present and all future search engines to be capable of searching on
>> inflected sign forms (for example using the Stokoe classification of
>> handshape, orientation, location, movement, repetition). It is us as users
>> who impose order on lexems whether signs or words.
>>
>> We could be consistent in the way that we write each SignWriting symbol in
>> the same way that there is a convention for how Stokoe is written generally
>> following.*location, handshape, movement, orientation, repetition *and *
>> alterations* as we describe the full sign.
>>
>> The ISWA will prove sufficent for Bing, Google, Alpha, Yahoo!, etc to
>> retrieve on because it is part of Unicode. But let's not make their lives
>> easier at the expense of making our own more difficult. We have better
>> things to do than help Microsoft, Google, Wolfram or Yahoo! fleece us.
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 11:50 AM, Charles Butler <
>> chazzer3332000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>>  Hello Folks,
>>>
>>> Although I don't know how to change Bing, I'm glad that the system
>>> footnotes my article, written back in 2001, on an ordering system for Sign
>>> Writing.
>>>
>>> http://www.signwriting.org/archive/docs1/sw0066-SW-Journal-Butler.pdf
>>>
>>> I believe that we need to fine-tune the system so that the order of
>>> handshapes follows logically, not simply as they are put into the system, as
>>> having the articulated fingers starting straight, then together, then
>>> curved, then bent, then crossed, seems logical but because of the order of
>>> creation of a given handshape in the historical progression of the ISWAthat
>>> sometimes does not follow.
>>>
>>> Ordering of the system now simply follows the order of the coding, so
>>> that signs using the same articulators can be put into a system.  The
>>> sign-shape-sequence which I have been trying to include or edit all the
>>> signs I find to include, follows the glyphs in sequence order internal to a
>>> sign.
>>>
>>> 1) Right hand (by hand group, sub-hand group, orientation, rotation)
>>> 2) Left hand (by hand group, sub-hand group, orientation, rotation)
>>> 3) Right hand contact (touch, grasp, brush, rub, in-between)
>>> 4) Left hand contact (touch, grasp, brush, rub, in-between)
>>> 5) Right hand location (include face or body) (location on the face,
>>> location on the body)
>>> 6) Left hand location (include face or body) (location on the face,
>>> location on the body)
>>> 7) Right hand movement (straight, curved, compound)
>>> 8) Left hand movement (straight, curved, compound)
>>> 9) Right hand speed (prosody) (slow, fast, smooth) There are signs in
>>> LIBRAS where the only difference is the speed of the sign)
>>> 10) Left hand speed (prosody) (slow, fast, smooth)
>>> 11) Facial expression (I have no idea how to order facial expressions)
>>> 12) Body posture (there are signs in LIBRAS where the only difference is
>>> a posture)
>>>
>>> Now that we have a sufficiently large corpus, I would propose we use this
>>> system for some experiments to see how clearly it actually works.  The only
>>> change I would put in might be in defining 1) as "Dominant Hand" and 2) as
>>> "non-Dominant Hand" but there are many signs such as "WITH" in ASL that have
>>> no clearly dominant hand, so that it might be simpler to continue with
>>> "right-hand dominant".
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Charles Butler
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ____________________________________________
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Regards, Trevor.
>>
>> <>< Re: deemed!
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
>
>
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