AW: AW: Creating a sign language ordered dictionary

Sun Dec 12 00:05:45 UTC 2010

I understand your "search by word" for practical reasons, I guess what I am 
looking to would be a future in which signed language dictionaries are just 
that, signed language dictionaries, not bilingual dictionaries in a spoken 
language with signs attached to them.

You wouldn't teach English grammar in French, nor French grammar in English 
unless you intended that a person never be fluent in English alone or French 
alone.  

So in teaching ASL, or LIBRAS, or Ethiopian Sign Language, I'm trying to truly 
think in a signed language, in projection, so if I want to find a sign, I want 
to look it up by handshape because I may see someone using the sign and I have 
no idea, even in context, what it may mean.

I got so frustrated when I was taking ASL at Gallaudet University and the 
question was asked "how many signs can you think of which use the "little 
finger" handshape.  

The lists of signs included, spaghetti, innocent, idea, draw, etc, but every one 
of the lists was in English words, in what I thought was a "total immersion" 
sign language class.

I was the only one taking notes in sign language, so if I saw a sign I didn't 
know, I tried not to ask in English, but in sign, and expected a signed answer, 
not an English language answer, but the teacher, who was native Deaf, kept on 
writing down English words, not what I wanted at all.

Charles

________________________________
From: Stefan Wöhrmann <stefanwoehrmann at GEBAERDENSCHRIFT.DE>
To: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACC.EDU
Sent: Sat, December 11, 2010 6:54:36 PM
Subject: AW: AW: Creating a sign language ordered dictionary

Hi Charles, 

thanks for your explanation.  

Well for practical reasons I am happy to look up a sign from „searching by 
word“. 

Sometimes I feel lucky to look for signs by symbol – especially if I get a 
message in ASL and have to look for the meaning of a sign. 

I see that you would love to have a dictionary in sign order. – This is 
interesting. 

I do not know what categories would be first, second third – if I would go to 
sort all the signs.

Thanks for your answer. 

Stefan 

________________________________

Von:SignWriting List: Read and Write Sign Languages 
[mailto:SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACC.EDU] Im Auftrag von Charles Butler
Gesendet: Sonntag, 12. Dezember 2010 00:14
An: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACC.EDU
Betreff: Re: AW: Creating a sign language ordered dictionary

Okay, when Valerie first came out with Sign Writing for Everyday Use, we had an 
order to the signs within each group, following in a logical order from straight 
to bent to curled.  With the growth of the system, handshapes have been added 
without a logical progression so that missing ones may be inferred but there is 
no order to them.  

For a complete dictionary, in sign order, then pushing "Sign Frequency" will 
print them by group and in order of the numbers of the codes, but that coding is 
not consistent across the board.

When I teach the system, I teach it in an order, Group 1, then Group 2, then 
Group 3, then Group 4, but i also attempt to put the actual handshapes in a 
logical order, and at the moment that varies from sign language to sign language 
depending on which handshapes are actually used in the language. 

I published, some time ago, a proposed system to put 

1) handshape
2) orientation starting from facing the reader, half left or right, back of 
hand, face up, forward half left or right, face down
3) rotation from vertical rotating clockwise.
4) --- second handshape would fit here if more than one hand is in the sign, 
orientation, rotation
4A - I put location here, Valerie puts it at the end, from her experiments with 
Deaf looking up signs. 
5) --- contact (touch, strike, brush, rub)
6) --- finger movement
7) --- vertical movement
8) --- horizontal movement
9) --- curved vertical movement
10) --- curved horizontal movement
11) --- circles
12) --- speed
13) --- facial expressions

So, for example, the following are in Sign-Symbol-Sequence Order for me.  All 
two handed signs come after all one handed signs for the same orientation. 

  = Group 1, primary orientation, no movement

 = Group 1, primary orientation, movement vertical, 

 = Group 1, primary orientation, first hand, group one, primary orientation 
second hand, movement horizontal, facial involvement (ALL TWO HANDED SIGNS COME 
AFTER ONE HANDED SIGNS)

 = Group 1, primary orientation, first hand, group 5, back of hand, second hand, 
movement horizontal (GROUP 5 comes after GROUP 1) 

 = Group 1, second orientation, 45 counter clockwise, circular motion, facial 
involvement

 - Group 1, first hand, second orientation, 45 counter clockwise, Group 1, 
crooked handshape, finger movement, finger movement.  Is this before the one 
above from the finger movement?

(SKIPPING A FEW)

 = Group 5, first hand, forward, half, 45 counter clockwise, Group 5, second 
hand, forward, half, 45 clockwise, held in between, forward twice 

  Group 5, side forward, half, 45 counter clockwise, Group 5 side forward, half, 
45 clockwise, held in between, twice forward twice, slow

The Sign Symbol Sequence may order the signs if each of them has been ordered, 
but I have not sufficiently experimented to see if one enters signs and then 
orders them by one's chosen order whether the "symbol frequency" will follow 
that order.  

From:Stefan Wöhrmann <stefanwoehrmann at GEBAERDENSCHRIFT.DE>
To: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACC.EDU
Sent: Sat, December 11, 2010 12:08:45 PM
Subject: AW: Creating a sign language ordered dictionary
Hi Charles, 

can you explain? I do not understand. 

Stefan ;-) 

________________________________

Von:SignWriting List: Read and Write Sign Languages 
[mailto:SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACC.EDU] Im Auftrag von Charles Butler
Gesendet: Samstag, 11. Dezember 2010 14:29
An: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACC.EDU
Betreff: Re: Creating a sign language ordered dictionary

But can you print a dictionary from Sign Puddle in one's chosen order without 
constructing it yourself? I order my dictionary down to the individual handshape 
and movement, and that is all by hand.

Charles

________________________________

From:Stefan Wöhrmann <stefanwoehrmann at GOOGLEMAIL.COM>
To: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACC.EDU
Sent: Sat, December 11, 2010 2:37:24 AM
Subject: AW: I need your help: DOS Box and SignWriter 4.4
Hi Meryeme, 

I am no software expert whatsoever and it took me a long time to understand the 
tricks how to install the DOS-Box proberly to work together with the SW 4.4  
Program (except for printing) . I wrote a short tutorial – 

http://www.gebaerdenschrift.de/documents/dos_winxp/dos_box_installation.htm

Perhaps this can support you in your efforts? 

In addition to that. It takes some time to become an expert with this DOS – 
SignWriter 4.4  Program  - you have to download and install the dictionary ... 

As Valerie mentioned before – the SignPuddle software allows an easy way to 
create entries, to create documents, to send emails written in SignWriting, to 
look up terms word – to sign order and to look up signs – symbol –to sign order, 
you can search for frequencies (what are the most often used symbols) .... 

Good luck 

Stefan

________________________________

Von:SignWriting List : Read and Write Sign Languages 
[mailto:SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACC.EDU] Im Auftrag von Meryeme Ayache
Gesendet: Freitag, 10. Dezember 2010 22:04
An: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACC.EDU
Betreff: Re: I need your help

hey Valerie and Stefan :-)
   I hope that you all are doing well. I installed the DOSbox but I have problem 
in some DOS commands like 'md \sw' in order to create f directory but I will 
keep trying I think that is because I am using window 7 but I am not sure. and 
by the way I used the ASL SignPuddle Dictionary and I really like but I don't 
wanna use it in my project because I need to enter the sign writing manually 
because I have to verify first if the entered character belong to the list of 
sign-writing language or not and that is what we call it (the lexical analyzer 
:-) and it is the first step to realize a compiler I will let you updated of my 
researches 

-- 
Meryeme Ayache.
Elève ingénieur ( 2ème année )
Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Informatique et d'Analyse des Systèmes (  Rabat ).
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