As I understand it, true sign language (e.g. ASL) has its own syntax and to some extent tis own vocabulary. The "slowness" sign language is almost entirely in those artificial variants where there has been an attempt to transliterate the spoken language into a set of gestures. Natively signed language is at least as fast and expressive as spoken, possibly more so. I'm fairly sure the bottleneck in both cases is the mental production of the string of symbols, not their physical enactment.
My operating theory, not original, is that language arose from the ability to watch another's hands and understand what they were doing. (The fact that signed language operates at "native" as opposed to "emulated" speed and breadth tends to support this.) This is the angle I'm attacking language from in Tommy -- have him interpret sequences of actions, and see what kind of mechanism that forces me to build. Josh On Tuesday 05 June 2007 05:00:49 am Bob Mottram wrote: > I remember last year there was some talk about possibly using Lojban > as a possible language use to teach an AGI in a minimally ambiguous > way. Does anyone know if the same level of ambiguity found in > ordinary English language also applies to sign language? I know very > little about sign language, but it seems possible that the constraints > applied by the relatively long time periods needed to produce gestures > with arms/hands compared to the time required to produce vocalizations > may mean that sign language communication is more compact and maybe > less ambiguous. > > Also, comparing the way that the same concepts are represented using > spoken and sign language might reveal something about how we normally > parse sentences. > > ----- > This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email > To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; > > ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=231415&user_secret=e9e40a7e
