Ordering Signs

Sun Nov 29 12:58:03 UTC 2009

Sorry Gagnon iI can't read this! Huge text and yellow font ... yuck.

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 11:50 AM, Gagnon et Thibeault <atg at videotron.ca>wrote:

>  *Hi Trevor, Charles, Gerard, Christophe, and everyone*
> **
> *    A Deaf teacher and I have been working on a Sign Writing LSQ (a
> written LSQ) dictionary for one month now.  The Deaf teacher has been
> testing if Deaf children are able to look up SW orders without alphabetic
> orders in the dictionary.*
> **
> *    It seems that it works well because Deaf children who have
> difficulties to **read a written French can directly find a written LSQ to
> help them find a French word in the dictionary.*
> **
> *    Charles mentioned that handshape orders are “index finger”, “index &
> middle finger”, “index finger, middle, & thumb”, “four fingers”, “four
> fingers & thumb”, “thumb & small finger”, “thumb & ring finger”, “thumb &
> index finger”, and “thumb & fist”.  I focus on “Index Finger”. You will see
> the attached ISWA.  The Index Finger has 13 different handshapes from ISWA
> in the world. However, the Index Finger of the LSQ has only 5 different
> handshapes.*
> **
> *    In addition, you will see the attached location orders.  Location
> orders have 5 parts: 1) head & neck, 2) trunk & leg, 3) arm, 4) hand, 5)
> neutral space.  If you look up a written LSQ in the dictionary, you must
> think from the high level of location to the low level of location. Contact
> symbols which include touch, hit, rub and so forth interact with a specific
> area of the body.  If the hand or the finger touches the nose, you look up
> quickly a head location order.  For example, if a signer produces BELIEVE
> (ASL), the index finger touches the middle front: you look up a “head”
> location order.  Another example, if the signer produces SHOW (ASL), the
> index finger of the right hand touches the palm of the left hand. You look
> up a hand location order.  If the signer produces ONE (ASL), the index
> finger is the front of the shoulder without contact symbols.  You look up a
> last (neutral space) location order.*
> **
> *    You will see the attached SW orders.  You will find a first page.
> You look up index finger and location orders. EYE (LSQ) is a highest level
> of the head than higher level of the head for TOOTH (LSQ) than a high level
> of the head for CANDY (LSQ) than a low level of the head for TO SAY (LSQ).
> *
> **
> *    Trevor, if the signer who uses a British manual alphabet produces “A”
> (BSL), the index finger of the right hand touches the thumb of the left hand
> (handshape 5).  You look up an index finger order and a hand location order
> in the BSL dictionary.  If the signer produces “I” (BSL), the index finger
> of the right hand touches the tip of the middle finger of the left hand
> (handshape 5).  You look up an index finger order and a hand location order.
> You will see the attached SW orders (page 21).*
> **
> *    We will adjust and test the LSQ dictionary.  We are still working on
> it.   If Trevor, Charles or everyone takes a (SW) workshop or attends a (SW)
> conference, we will be happy to teach him/her how to look up quickly your
> own sign language in the dictionary.*
> **
> *    Best regards,*
> **
> *    André*
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Christopher Miller <christophermiller at mac.com>
> *To:* SignWriting List <sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu>
> *Cc:* Christopher Miller <christophermiller at mac.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, November 26, 2009 1:05 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [sw-l] Ordering Signs
> ****
> Just  a short note about the origin of standard alphabetical order: it
> actually descends from one of two orders used in the ancient Ugaritic
> alphabet ca 14th century BCE. (Scroll down to "Alphabetic order" at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet.) The order has been kept overall in
> all the non-Indic descendants of the West Semitic alphabets except for the
> reformed Arabic alphabet, which nevertheless kept it for letters used as
> numerals like the way we use a, b, c... in lists. The chart from the primer
> that you cite is rather ingenious in the way it tries to shoehorn the
> alphabetically ordered letters into aligning by place of articulation but
> nearly as many letters fall through the cracks as fit into the arrangement.
>
> Using conventional alphabetic orders for the handshapes of different sign
> languages, following the handshape-letter pairings in various manual
> alphabets, has the advantage (in each sign language) of using an order
> familiar from the surrounding written version of the spoken language, but
> there are always more handshapes than those in the manual alphabet, and the
> ones in the manual alphabet are not all necessarily used in signs
> themselves, as opposed to representing written letters for fingerspelling.
> And, in two-handed alphabets like the British manual alphabet or other older
> ones used in Italy, Indonesia or North America, a printed letter does not
> usually correspond to a single given handshape and vice versa. ANd of
> course, there are many more symbols apart from handshapes in any system for
> writing or notating signs, whether Signwriting, Stokoe, Hamnosys or any
> other: locations, movements etc.
>
> So whatever the system, the best choice is to base the collation order on
> aspects of the actual structure of the handshapes and other structural
> elements used to make signs. Still, once you start on this basis, there are
> lots of choices, some of them essentially arbitrary, as to what groups of
> symbols, and what symbols within these groups, should be placed in what
> order.
>
>  On 2009-11-26, at 12:10 PM, Charles Butler wrote:
>
>   I understand your concern that SW is too young to mandate an order as it
> may grow linguistically for some situations.  However, the groups of
> handshapes are by fingers used, so though they are also ASL numbers, they
> are based on which fingers are being used in a sign, which makes them very
> useful in clustering signs together that all use the "index finger", the
> "index and middle finger", the "index finger, middle, and thumb", the "four
> fingers", "the four fingers and thumb", "the thumb and small finger", the
> "thumb and ring finger", the "thumb and index finger" and the "thumb/fist".
>
>
> One can cluster in any number of ways.  Just as aside, the Roman Alphabet
> is thought to have been based on a primer
>
> A B C D
> E F G     H
> I          J
>        K     L
>    M     N
> O P Q     R
>             S
>             T
> U V W X Y
>             Z
>
> There are missing sounds, but a grid in order of vowels, bilabials,
> gutterals, dentals, and liquids seems to work for me.
>
>  ------------------------------
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Regards, Trevor.

<>< Re: deemed!
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