Ordering Signs

Mon Nov 30 00:45:24 UTC 2009

You can always hit reply and highlight the text and change it to black. As
well as copy and paste in a word doc and change to black.  See below.

From: sw-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
[mailto:sw-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu] On Behalf Of Trevor Jenkins
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 6:23 PM
To: SignWriting List
Subject: Re: [sw-l] Ordering Signs

True Gerard I do have reasonable eye sight but I also have dyslexia and
bright yellow on white makes it impossible for me to read that text.

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 1:14 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>
wrote:

Hoi,
You are blessed with the eye sight that makes this yellow and huge. Some
people have a visual impairment and for them this is how they CAN
communicate. I think we are blessed that Gagnon makes the effort to reach
out. He does validly and materially contribute. 

I agree that YELLOW and BIG is not pleasant and I hope you will agree with
me that once you know why it is easily overcome.
Thanks,
      Gerard

2009/11/29 Trevor Jenkins <bslwannabe at gmail.com>

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 <mailto:christophermiller at mac.com>  

To: SignWriting List <mailto:sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu>  

Cc: Christopher Miller <mailto: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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-- 
Regards, Trevor.

<>< Re: deemed!

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