[Sw-l] Handshape orientation problem

Thu Oct 29 21:09:35 UTC 2020

Ahh, sorting for a dictionary. This is actually something that needs some working. ;-)

I see that you are trying to make your sorting by saying what is a right hand and what is a left hand. Hmm… As I stated before, the upper half would be for the right hand and the lower for the left in most cases. It is in these cases of using this “fourth” palm facing where this issue become complicated.

My first thought might be to consider the lower half of the “black-white” fills to also be for the right hand. However, this might create more problems for you because you would then also have to consider them to be left hands as well.

I guess it depends on how you are doing your sorting for handiness. If you are saying that a sign with only has one hand symbol is automatically assumed to be the right hand, then this sign would be included in that sort. However, you would run into a problem once you have more than one hand symbols, either because the sign uses both hands and has two hand symbols or because the right hand changes handshapes and also have two hand symbols.

I have done some sorting of signs for my own work, albeit not as complete as you have done nor included the type of searching you have done. What I have done is used the SignSpelling Sequence for my sorting. I would place the first hand symbol as the symbol for the right hand, followed by the second hand symbol as the symbol for the left hand. In the cases where there is no “written” left hand, I have placed a “null” symbol. (I used the very first symbol  for my purposes because I have yet to see this symbol used as a left hand.) This results in the third hand symbol in the sequence being interpreted as the right hand that has changed handshape. I haven’t gotten any signs with more than 3 hand symbols, but I guess it could be easily done where the odd hand symbols are always right hands and even always left by using the “null” symbol for the left hand any time there isn’t a written hand symbol for that hand.

Here is a plain text page of what I have done with the SignSpelling Sequence. https://www.signbank.org/signpuddle2.0/plaintext.php?ui=1&sgn=105 <https://www.signbank.org/signpuddle2.0/plaintext.php?ui=1&sgn=105>. You will notice there are a lot of “null” symbols. I have used this list for a working vocabulary index on this page, https://www.frostvillage.com/docs/lexicon.html <https://www.frostvillage.com/docs/lexicon.html>. You will notice that the “null” symbols have been replaced with “Ø” in order to make it less confusing to the reader as to the meaning. I was easily able to replace the while still keeping the same hand symbols that were truly written.

I don’t know if your sort data uses the SignSpelling Sequence. If it doesn’t, it would be quite a bit of work to include that for every sign, but even changing your system to what I have used would take a lot as well.

Adam

> On Oct 29, 2020, at 1:23 PM, Honza <honza at RUCE.CZ> wrote:
> 
> Hello Adam,
> 
> Thank you very much for your answer and explanation. I don't know why, but I have always thought all symbols are divided in two halves as follows: upper part right hand, lower part left hand.
> 
> In the past, we used some symbols from the lower part, since this symbols are not included in the first part, but we thought it is not correct since it is the symbol designated for left hand. Ok, that is my misunderstanding for all that years... 
> 
> Ok, now people will ask me, why this "forth" symbols are not sorted on behalf the three standard ones.. I see there is a reason, but from the perspective of rotations, it would be good to have it in one row (but some twice, I know).
> 
> Adam and Val, we use SignWriting symbols for sign search in our dictionary and we use the distinction of left and right hand symbols (upper and lower part), so we are able to search among one-hand signs and two-hand signs separately. Now if there is in principle no difference between left and right hand symbols, there are only movement arrows left for sorting one and two-hand signs, but there is nothing left when the writing contains only handshapes and contact (star) symbols. Do you have an idea, how to sort them?
> 
> Honza
> 
> On Thu, 29 Oct 2020 at 13:47, Adam Frost <icemandeaf at gmail.com <mailto:icemandeaf at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 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:
> <glyphogram.png>
> 
> 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.
> 
> <namesign.png>
> Adam
> 
>> On Oct 29, 2020, at 12:36 AM, Honza <honza at RUCE.CZ <mailto: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
>> 
>> ________________________________________________
>> 
>> SIGNWRITING LIST INFORMATION
>> 
>> Valerie Sutton SignWriting List moderator sutton at signwriting.org <mailto:sutton at signwriting.org>
>> Post Messages to the SignWriting List: sw-l at listserv.valenciacollege.edu <mailto:sw-l at listserv.valenciacollege.edu>
>> SignWriting List Archives & Home Page http://www.signwriting.org/forums/swlist <http://www.signwriting.org/forums/swlist>
>> Join, Leave or Change How You Receive SW List Messages http://listserv.valenciacollege.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=SW-L&A=1 <http://listserv.valenciacollege.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=SW-L&A=1>
> ________________________________________________
> 
> SIGNWRITING LIST INFORMATION
> 
> Valerie Sutton SignWriting List moderator sutton at signwriting.org <mailto:sutton at signwriting.org>
> Post Messages to the SignWriting List: sw-l at listserv.valenciacollege.edu <mailto:sw-l at listserv.valenciacollege.edu>
> SignWriting List Archives & Home Page http://www.signwriting.org/forums/swlist <http://www.signwriting.org/forums/swlist>
> Join, Leave or Change How You Receive SW List Messages http://listserv.valenciacollege.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=SW-L&A=1 <http://listserv.valenciacollege.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=SW-L&A=1>________________________________________________
> 
> SIGNWRITING LIST INFORMATION
> 
> Valerie Sutton SignWriting List moderator sutton at signwriting.org <mailto:sutton at signwriting.org>
> Post Messages to the SignWriting List: sw-l at listserv.valenciacollege.edu <mailto:sw-l at listserv.valenciacollege.edu>
> SignWriting List Archives & Home Page http://www.signwriting.org/forums/swlist <http://www.signwriting.org/forums/swlist>
> Join, Leave or Change How You Receive SW List Messages http://listserv.valenciacollege.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=SW-L&A=1 <http://listserv.valenciacollege.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=SW-L&A=1>

________________________________________________

SIGNWRITING LIST INFORMATION

Valerie Sutton
SignWriting List moderator
sutton at signwriting.org

Post Messages to the SignWriting List:
sw-l at listserv.valenciacollege.edu

SignWriting List Archives & Home Page
http://www.signwriting.org/forums/swlist

Join, Leave or Change How You Receive SW List Messages
http://listserv.valenciacollege.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=SW-L&A=1
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/sw-l/attachments/20201029/09b1e4a0/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: namesign.png
Type: image/png
Size: 440 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/sw-l/attachments/20201029/09b1e4a0/attachment.png>