[Sw-l] Handshape orientation problem

[Adam Frost]

Hello Honza,

If I understand your question correctly, you are asking about this symbol being for the dominant hand:


Below is the sign that you have written:


It looks well written and matches the video that was provided. (Even when noticing that the signer was left handed and the writing is for right handed dominant signing.)

It seems the confusion comes from the fact that the handshape symbol is found in SignPuddle on the lower half of the grid when showing all of the rotations. People generally assume that the rotations are sorted to be “right hand” on the upper half and “left hand” on the lower half.

While this does generally turn out to be true, this isn’t how the rotations are sorted. The symbols are only sorted by rotating counter-clockwise then flipping and rotating clockwise. There is no consideration for “right hand” or “left hand” as the symbols do not hold such inherit handiness in their meaning.

If I were to take your initial sign and use a different palm facing - facing towards the back - you will notice that the handshape symbol is now on the upper half of the rotation level’s grid:


So, there is no information about handiness in the handshape symbol in of itself. To further illustrate my point, consider the writing below:

Notice that I use the same handshape symbol. We know that it is the left hand, not because of the handshape symbol, but because of the arrowhead. The handshape symbol only tells us the handshape, the fingers are pointing down, and that the palm is facing towards the left.

So there is nothing wrong with the writing you had. It was written correctly. It is, however, a perfect example of how the rotating order does *not* actually imply right hand or left hand for handshape symbols. ;-)

If you wanted to take into consideration of the rotation of palm facing of a hand beyond the standard 3 palm facings, it could be done as followed:
   
Notice that the last palm facing of this series is generally not displayed on the grid because of two reasons: it can be found on the other half of the rotations by using the second symbol, and it is generally not used for most sign languages. This choice was made to reduce space and redundant symbols.

So if I were to using the same ordering of palm facing rotation with the fingers point down, I would get this:
   
The last symbol is the one that you are writing with. If the reduction was not made, then you would be able to find this symbol on both halves of the grid because the fourth column would just be the same as the second with the upper and lower halves switched.

I hope this explanation helps understand why it is best not to think of the rotation grid as "upper half" = "right hand" and "lower half" = "left hand”. Especially since the side palm facing can double up as both as shown above.


Adam

> On Oct 29, 2020, at 12:36 AM, Honza <honza at RUCE.CZ> wrote:
> 
> Hi Val,
> 
> I hope, you are still going well ;)
> We are facing problem with handshapes orientation with fingers pointing to the ground.
> See this Czech Sign Language sign https://beta.dictio.info/czj/search/text/10627 <https://beta.dictio.info/czj/search/text/10627> (first video) (note that the signer is left handed, but SW is always switched on right hand for ther purpose of the dictionary.)
> Sign is already written down using SW, but with incorrect handshape (just to show better the orientation - without finger it is not very good visible in this case).
> There is a symbol showing this orientation, but it is non dominant hand and that is not correct. 
> 
> So it seems to me, we are missing symbols with this orientation (fingers pointing to the ground).
> 
> We use SignWriting as well for searching, so it is necessary tu use correct hand.
> 
> Thanks for your ideas.
> Honza, Czechia
> 
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