There are 18 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: proto-Europic
From: Peter Cyrus
1.2. Re: proto-Europic
From: Roger Mills
1.3. Re: proto-Europic
From: And Rosta
1.4. Re: proto-Europic
From: Padraic Brown
2.1. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden
From: Gary Shannon
2.2. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden
From: George Corley
2.3. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden
From: Gary Shannon
2.4. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden--AND some good n
From: Roger Mills
2.5. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden
From: Carsten Becker
2.6. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden
From: Padraic Brown
3a. Re: Word lists based on order of language acquisition
From: Gary Shannon
4a. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language
From: David Peterson
4b. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language
From: Michael Everson
4c. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language
From: Arthaey Angosii
4d. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language
From: David Peterson
4e. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language
From: Alex Fink
5a. Re: THEORY: Loss of allophonic variation
From: Eric Christopherson
6. Another vocabulary test
From: taliesin the storyteller
Messages
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1.1. Re: proto-Europic
Posted by: "Peter Cyrus" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 2:42 pm ((PDT))
The two ideas are not exclusive : they could have lived all over Europe
before the Celts, and been pushed by them into the corners.
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 11:26 PM, Jörg Rhiemeier <[email protected]>wrote:
> Hallo conlangers!
>
> On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:08:11 +0200 Peter Cyrus wrote:
>
> > I thought the Elves were the pre-Germanic inhabitants of Scandinavia, the
> > ones who sacrificed to Freyr and Freya in Elfblots.
>
> Maybe; some scholars say so. But AFAIK the tradition of "Elves"
> was much more vigorous among the Anglo-Saxons who perceived the
> Elves as sharing their country (I recommend reading _Elves in
> Anglo-Saxon England_ by Alaric Hall), while in Norse myth the Elves
> just live in a faraway country "between Heaven and Earth" (perhaps
> Britain as it appeared when the Germanic people were not yet the
> formidable mariners of later ages, and the North Sea seemed large
> to them?), and they don't figure prominently in the Eddas. And the
> Insular Celts definitely believed that Elves lived in their country,
> too.
>
> It is thus my hypothesis that the "real" Elves were a civilization
> in the British Isles. But I know that it is just a hypothesis; it
> could have been otherwise.
>
> --
> ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
> http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
> "Bęsel asa Ęm, a Ęm atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Ęmel." - SiM 1:1
>
Messages in this topic (33)
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1.2. Re: proto-Europic
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:56 pm ((PDT))
Better watch out-- sound like something that could easily get promoted to
natlanghood :-)))) I recall Jan van Steenbergen's Hattic tjhat elicited at
least one such response from some researcher..........they thought it was
Anatolian IIRC
----- Original Message -----
From: And Rosta <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc:
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 3:59 PM
Subject: Re: proto-Europic
George Corley, On 28/03/2012 20:22:
> Wait, what? I suppose you could ask the creator. Or are you creating this
> "Old European" yourself?
Old Albic (and the hypothesized Hesperic and Europic families) is Joerg's
creation. As a conlang it is IMO quite conspicuously interesting because it
fuses orthodox linguistic scholarship with conlanging: Joerg tries to make Old
Albic consistent with what we know about Old European and Insular Celtic and
with what we might expect Early Europic lgs to be like. (It also has a
secondary aim of fashioning a 'real world' -- conhistorical -- counterpart of
the Eldar, which to my thinking conflicts with the other aim somewhat
unsatisfactorily (tho certainly no less unsatisfactorily than the conflicting
aims of my own conlang).) It's similar to Brithenig and its ilk -- conlanging
that is consistent with a body of facts about particular natlangs.
I've thought over the years about doing something akin to Proto-Europic, but I
don't have the dedication to do the project justice, and in my hands the
project would involve larger imaginative leaps away from the terra firma of
established scholarship that Joerg's Old Albic rests more securely on; it's the
comparative conservatism of Joerg's approach that makes it more interesting to
the audience. (I.e. I'd have more fun doing Proto-Europic my way than Joerg's,
but the results are more interesting when things are done Joerg's way.)
--And.
> On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 3:15 PM, And Rosta<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Europic is a conjectural language family that contains Indo-European and
>> Old European (the language of Old European hydronymy). Within Old European
>> is the Hesperic family, which contains Albic. The similarities between Old
>> Albic and internally reconstructed (pre-)Proto-Indo-European are very
>> striking -- far more than could be attributed to areal influence from
>> Celtic, so one must assume that only a rather shallow time distance
>> separates Proto-Europic from PIE and Old Albic. Given the relatively
>> shallow time distance and the testimony of PIE and Old Albic, a
>> reconstruction of Proto-Europic should be practicable? Does one yet exist?
>>
>> I haven't been able to find an Old Albic lexicon, so my observations are
>> based on a description of Old Albic grammar and the vocables used in its
>> examples.
>>
>> --And.
>>
Messages in this topic (33)
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1.3. Re: proto-Europic
Posted by: "And Rosta" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 29, 2012 12:10 am ((PDT))
Jörg Rhiemeier, On 28/03/2012 22:26:
> It is thus my hypothesis that the "real" Elves were a civilization
> in the British Isles. But I know that it is just a hypothesis; it
> could have been otherwise.
Do you have views on whether the _alb_ elements of _Albion_ and _Albany_ mean
"Elf", "mountain (alp)" or "white (cliffs of Dover)"?
(IMO the sole drawback of the Chunnel is that when returning from the Continent
one no longer looks, with leaping heart, upon the high white cliffs of Albion.)
--And.
Messages in this topic (33)
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1.4. Re: proto-Europic
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 29, 2012 3:59 am ((PDT))
--- On Thu, 3/29/12, And Rosta <[email protected]> wrote:
> (IMO the sole drawback of the Chunnel is that when returning
> from the Continent one no longer looks, with leaping heart,
> upon the high white cliffs of Albion.)
You can still take the LD Lines ferry...and let your heart leap with joy
upon seeing the white cliffs of Albion!
Though at fifty nicker each way, it's an expensive way of letting your
heart leap!
Padraic
> --And.
Messages in this topic (33)
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2.1. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 2:52 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 1:27 PM, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I think by now this number must be vanishingly small, espècially among the
> younger generations. Twenty-five years ago, there was Quenya, and that
> was about it. Then came Klingon which I think laid the foundation for
> the mainstreaming of constructed languages.---
Don't forget the movie "Caveman" with Ringo Starr, filmed entirely in
the conlang created for the movie. ;-) And it didn't even use
subtitles!
--gary
Messages in this topic (33)
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2.2. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 2:55 pm ((PDT))
I have never seen the movie, but from I read, that movie's language mostly
consisted of "ugh" and "zugzug".
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 5:52 PM, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 1:27 PM, Padraic Brown <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >
> > I think by now this number must be vanishingly small, espècially among
> the
> > younger generations. Twenty-five years ago, there was Quenya, and that
> > was about it. Then came Klingon which I think laid the foundation for
> > the mainstreaming of constructed languages.---
>
> Don't forget the movie "Caveman" with Ringo Starr, filmed entirely in
> the conlang created for the movie. ;-) And it didn't even use
> subtitles!
>
> --gary
>
Messages in this topic (33)
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2.3. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:15 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 2:55 PM, George Corley <[email protected]> wrote:
> I have never seen the movie, but from I read, that movie's language mostly
> consisted of "ugh" and "zugzug".
>>
>> Don't forget the movie "Caveman" with Ringo Starr, filmed entirely in
>> the conlang created for the movie. ;-)
http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/cavespeak.html
In some theaters they passed out pamphlets containing a dictionary of
all 30 or so words.
--gary
Messages in this topic (33)
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2.4. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden--AND some good n
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:50 pm ((PDT))
From: Gary Shannon [email protected]
Don't forget the movie "Caveman" with Ringo Starr, filmed entirely in
the conlang created for the movie. ;-) And it didn't even use
subtitles!
=======================================
And IIRC, " Quest for Fire" had some conlangy moments (some sort of IE devised
by ....Anthony Burgesss, I think?)
BTW I am leaving this therapy place on Friday morning 3/30/2012-- will be at my
friend Kim's (= Virginia Shotwell) probably for a couple months-- can't go to
my own house because I'm not up to stairways yet :-((((( Kim has a computer
that functions better than this public one, plus I have to find some way to
load some files from my desktop onto a laptop to work on while I'm away from
home.......
Messages in this topic (33)
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2.5. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden
Posted by: "Carsten Becker" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 29, 2012 12:43 am ((PDT))
On Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:45:10 -0500, Wm Annis <[email protected]> wrote:
>I mean, absent a few paragraphs (and
>the domain name), I would have no problem seeing Okuna as
>a natlang. Same with Ayeri.
Very kind of you ;) Let's see what happens once I'm done writing the grammar
(will I ever be?)
Anyway, you all assume that the inclusion of Denden there was as a natlang
and by mistake, but what if the editors of the handout actually included it
as an example regardless, for reasons that have been pointed out? After all,
we don't have the presentation that the handout went with, just the handout.
Carsten
Messages in this topic (33)
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2.6. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 29, 2012 4:01 am ((PDT))
--- On Thu, 3/29/12, Carsten Becker <[email protected]> wrote:
> Anyway, you all assume that the inclusion of Denden there was as a
> natlang and by mistake, but what if the editors of the handout
> actually included it as an example regardless, for reasons that have
> been pointed out? After all, we don't have the presentation that the
> handout went with, just the handout.
I thìnk someone contacted the author(s) about this ... perhaps we'll find
out soon enough!
Padraic
> Carsten
Messages in this topic (33)
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3a. Re: Word lists based on order of language acquisition
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:05 pm ((PDT))
There are a lot of word lists based on elementary grade levels, but
that may be further advanced than what you're looking for:
http://www.mrsperkins.com/dolch.htm
http://sb058.k12.sd.us/Vocabulary/click_on_the_grade_level_to_find.htm
http://www.paec.org/itrk3/files/pdfs/readingPdfs/coreVoc.pdf
--gary
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 1:37 PM, Matthew Martin
<[email protected]> wrote:
> I've been kicking around the idea of a small family conlang (a fake language
> with a small fixed vocab, for use in a home setting among parents and
> children).
>
> I read somewhere that there exists a list of the order in which words are
> typically acquired by infants. (mom and dad first, then 'want', etc). That
> list, if I could find it, would be very handy.
>
> I suppose that the same list could also be useful to the people who have
> been using the Basic English list, Swadesh or X most common words in a large
> corpus lists as the basis of their initial conlang vocabularies.
>
> So far, I've found this one for English:
>
> http://teachmetotalk.com/2008/02/12/first-100-words-advancing-your-toddlers-vocabulary-with-words-and-signs/
>
> Does anyone know of a better list, or cross cultural lists, especially one
> with some research behind it?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Matthew Martin
Messages in this topic (2)
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4a. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language
Posted by: "David Peterson" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:38 pm ((PDT))
On Mar 28, 2012, at 2:18 PM, Arthaey Angosii wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 2:03 PM, David Peterson <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Opposition isn't purely political, remember. I think SW is an awful system
>> for
>> a variety of reasons�none of which have anything to do with who invented
>> it or why.
>
> Can you share your objections? I'd love to hear them!
>
> My objections are largely aesthetic, to be honest. It looks so blocky!
> So gif-y! It doesn't look like a real writing system to me. (As a side
> note, I am asking on the SignWriting list about the "shorthand"
> version of it, because I'm hoping that will behave more like a usable
> script without being [too] lossy.)
>
> I also dislike the lack of density. Not many sentences fit on a
> standard sheet of paper, or above the fold. (Again, I'm hoping the
> "shorthand" version will help.)
Lord, where to start...
I agree with both of your objections, but the first is, of course, completely
subjective. We need not go that far.
SW is both too precise and not precise enough�both in very bad ways. Its lack
of precision can be seen right on the home page with the sign DEAF. Hopefully
everyone knows what the sign DEAF looks like: the signer touches their ear and
then their mouth (or in the other order; I think both work [though order is
also a problem for SW]). If you look at the SW version, though, you have no
idea where to touch. It looks like it's just the general area around the bottom
right-hand side of the face (receptive), and then the top of the head. Of
course, there's a reason you touch the mouth and ear specifically. If this is
just a conventional sign that we're meant to memorize, that's fine, but then
there should be *less* detail so it's easier to write and more iconic. SW has
the same problem with signs with subtle place distinctions like APPLE and ONION.
In that case, it's a lack of precision. I also think there's entirely too much
precision with the eyebrows. Personally, I don't think they should be written
at all. There are signs where the eyebrows do something for the sign, but,
again, it's not contrastive. Much more often the eyebrows convey intonational
information. So imagine you have two sentences:
She drove the car today.
Did she drive the car today?
In ASL, both of those sentences use exactly the same signs in exactly the same
order. In SW, you'd need to specify different facial expressions with something
that could just as easily be done with a question mark (after all, if it's a
yes/no question, you *know* where the eyebrows are supposed to be). It would
pose further problems for yes/no questions with multiple facial signs, e.g. "Do
you like apples and onions?" It'd be something like doing this:
How? are? you? doing? today?
Even topics could be specified just with, say, a comma (setting off an NP or
phrase at the beginning followed by a comma indicates well enough that it's a
topic, and a signer knows where the eyebrows go with all topics). An option (if
SW use it) is to use the "phrase" marking for eyebrows and then with signs that
use the face, don't write anything for the eyebrows; not sure if that's
standard.
SW is a phonetic system (by intention), but it can't encode innovative signs
(e.g. where the sign just utilizes a class marker and does, basically, whatever
it wants. One of the best I saw was a little kid's description of something
that was happening in a Ninja Turtles episode, where the Turtle Van plunges off
of a freeway overpass and then a parachute comes out of the top, and the van
floats to the ground. All of this was done with one sign and two handshapes. It
can't, at present, be encoded by SW�and there's a lot of spontaneous signing
like this in sign languages). If it attempts to, it will require new movement
glyphs�potentially an infinite number of them�which isn't something that makes
sense for a writing system.
For a handwritten system, SW requires too much drawing�and coloring. Off the
top of my head, I can't think of another writing system that requires you to
fill in shapes�let alone halfway. It's far too time-consuming for regular
communication (e.g. writing e-mails back and forth). It'd make more sense to
just record a video and post it to YouTube. For longterm transcription, it
makes more sense, but again: video!
Ultimately, SW is a 20th century solution and doesn't make much sense in the
21st century. My uncle, for example, would never use it because the iPhone
doesn't support it for texting�and even if it did, it's more cumbersome than
using English or FaceTime. That's a very specific objection, but it's a real
world objection. It's the world we live in now. A Unicode encoding is a step in
the right direction if implementation is desired, but it's a bit like having a
way for your beeper to forward pages to your cell phone via text message.
People are still going to use Word to write documents and still use standard
e-mail clients or the web to write e-mails. Even if they support the new
Unicode encoding, will they support top-to-bottom writing?
And then the system itself is full of way too many glyphs whose distinctions
are often too fine (such as the distinction between a finger attached directly
to the hand and not directly attached to the hand). I think, in fact, that'd
cause more problems with handwriting than typesetting. It's too small a space
to require that level of detail with respect to the rest of the glyphs in the
system.
Speaking of typesetting, how are you going to be able to take handshapes and
position them as precisely as is required to make the various signs? Forget
using their program: I mean in regular, day-to-day programs (Word, e-mail,
chat, Facebook, etc.)�stuff that people use. Either it's not going to be
possible to position handshapes with respect to one another (e.g. to do signs
like HOUSE vs. APPLE vs. DEAF vs. MARRIED), or it's going to require a whole
series of pre-arranged glyphs in Unicode, which would defeat the purpose of
having a phonetic system (unless the font had ligatures so that you could
conventional [again, defeating the point of a fully phonetic system] type in a
series of signs that would then produce the larger glyph).
To sum it up:
-SW is too precise. SW is also not precise enough.
-SW is too phonetic. SW is also not phonetic enough.
-SW is too logographic. SW is also not logographic enough.
-SW is too difficult to write. SW is too difficult to type.
About the only thing that isn't difficult is reading, which makes it a
not-so-bad method of longterm storage. Otherwise, the system really needs to be
reconceptualized with a modern audience in mind, and utilizing modern
technology.
David Peterson
LCS President
[email protected]
www.conlang.org
Messages in this topic (13)
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4b. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language
Posted by: "Michael Everson" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:59 pm ((PDT))
On 28 Mar 2012, at 23:38, David Peterson wrote:
> And then the system itself is full of way too many glyphs whose distinctions
> are often too fine (such as the distinction between a finger attached
> directly to the hand and not directly attached to the hand).
Some of these are phonemic in some languages even if not in ASL.
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Messages in this topic (13)
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4c. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language
Posted by: "Arthaey Angosii" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:25 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 3:38 PM, David Peterson <[email protected]> wrote:
> Lord, where to start...
WOW! I love seeing this detailed commentary!
One thing I've gathered from the (152-page!) document "A
Cross-Linguistic Guide to SignWriting" at
http://www.signwriting.org/archive/docs7/sw0617_Cross_Linguistic_Guide_SignWriting_Parkhurst.pdf
is that SW can be more or less phonetic, depending on your needs.
> SW has the same problem with signs with subtle place distinctions like APPLE
> and ONION.
I didn't know the sign for either of these words, but based on reading
the SW entries for each, I ended up doing the signs the same way that
AslPro.com's videos look:
APPLE: http://www.signbank.org/SignPuddle1.5/searchsign.php?sid=1384
ONION: http://www.signbank.org/SignPuddle1.5/searchsign.php?sid=7208
Similarly,
DEAF, underspecified:
http://www.signbank.org/SignPuddle1.5/searchsign.php?sid=7398
DEAF, detailed: http://www.signbank.org/SignPuddle1.5/searchsign.php?sid=7297
(Not sure why the second DEAF entry uses the left hand — perhaps that
means the transcriber was left-handed?)
So I think this is a matter of whether the *writer* is transcribing a
sign with enough detail, perhaps? My current interpretation is that
the "underspecified" DEAF entry would be like writing English without
vowels — if you already speak English, it can (generally) be
sufficient, although rather lossy.
> I also think there's entirely too much precision with the eyebrows.
> Personally, I don't think
> they should be written at all. There are signs where the eyebrows do
> something for the
> sign, but, again, it's not contrastive. Much more often the eyebrows convey
> intonational
> information. So imagine you have two sentences:
>
> She drove the car today.
> Did she drive the car today?
>
> In ASL, both of those sentences use exactly the same signs in exactly the
> same order.
> In SW, you'd need to specify different facial expressions with something that
> could just
> as easily be done with a question mark (after all, if it's a yes/no question,
> you *know*
> where the eyebrows are supposed to be). It would pose further problems for
> yes/no
> questions with multiple facial signs, e.g. "Do you like apples and onions?"
> It'd be
> something like doing this:
>
> How? are? you? doing? today?
I like your suggestion of not repeating this information and perhaps
relegating it to a clause/sentence-level symbol. I wonder whether
folks who actually use SW have already made this optimization...
> SW is a phonetic system (by intention), but it can't encode innovative signs
> [snip]
> If it attempts to, it will require new movement glyphs—potentially an infinite
> number of them—which isn't something that makes sense for a writing system.
New movement symbols wouldn't be as much a problem in handwriting, but
I agree that it wouldn't work for computerized writing.
> For a handwritten system, SW requires too much drawing—and coloring
See http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/cursive/handwriting/symbols.html
for suggested handwritten versions that don't fill in shapes. It still
strikes me as something that is not well-suited to writing at speed,
which is why I'm interested in finding an explanation of SW shorthand:
http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/cursive/shorthand/
> Ultimately, SW is a 20th century solution and doesn't make much sense
> in the 21st century. My uncle, for example, would never use it because
> the iPhone doesn't support it for texting—and even if it did, it's more
> cumbersome than using English or FaceTime. That's a very specific
> objection, but it's a real world objection. It's the world we live in now.
No arguments here.
> About the only thing that isn't difficult is reading, which makes it a
> not-so-bad method of longterm storage.
This is why I'm liking it, I think — I want it for notes on new signs
in my ASL class, and for flashcards. In both cases, it's
write-a-single-sign-once, read-many-times.
--
AA
http://conlang.arthaey.com
Messages in this topic (13)
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4d. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language
Posted by: "David Peterson" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 5:03 pm ((PDT))
Couple comments to clarify:
On Mar 28, 2012, at 3:58 PM, Michael Everson wrote:
> Some of these are phonemic in some languages even if not in ASL.
...and...
On Mar 28, 2012, at 4:24 PM, Arthaey Angosii wrote:
> See http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/cursive/handwriting/symbols.html
> for suggested handwritten versions that don't fill in shapes. It still
> strikes me as something that is not well-suited to writing at speed,
> which is why I'm interested in finding an explanation of SW shorthand:
> http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/cursive/shorthand/
Both of these are, I think, steps in the right direction. In order to make
sense as a system that one *uses* (as opposed to just one that one reads), the
symbol count needs to be reduced (more phonemic, less phonetic), and the
symbols themselves need to wear a little bit�need to make themselves suitable
for handwriting. Right now it looks like a conscript that someone creates
without thinking about how it would evolve in the hands of its users over a
period of years. In this case, there's a real (potential) group of users, and
they simply need to use it and evolve it, and the system itself should
accommodate and adapt to that evolution.
> This is why I'm liking it, I think � I want it for notes on new signs
> in my ASL class, and for flashcards. In both cases, it's
> write-a-single-sign-once, read-many-times.
Indeed, it might work for your purposes specifically. I hope you don't have to
take stuff down quickly, though! Often we'd get so much vocab at once that I
had to make a choice between watching and writing.
That's also a uniquely difficult thing about learning ASL�or any signed
language. With a spoken language, you can be looking down and still get the
word. If you look up, you get more information (lip movement, etc.), but
looking down isn't a detriment. With ASL, if you look down, well, that's it!
David Peterson
LCS President
[email protected]
www.conlang.org
Messages in this topic (13)
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4e. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 29, 2012 4:40 am ((PDT))
On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 13:58:13 -0700, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
>> - when Deaf people want to write, they write in English;
>> they don't want or need to learn yet another writing system
>
>Makes sense also, and I think this is the strongest argument against SW or
>any similar scheme -- it seems like this SW is to ASL what the IPA is to
>English. That is, trying to record ever more detailed nuances of a
>language.
>
>> - writing is what hearing people do; signing is what deaf
>> people do
>
>No -- speáking is what hearing people do. Anyone, hearing, deaf or blind,
>can write.
What I find curious is how these two arguments didn't turn out instead to be
"English is what hearing people use; ASL is what deaf people use". Is there
no sort of sense among Deaf people that their own language is being
subjugated to the hearing folks' language by English being the only form
that is writable?
Alex
Messages in this topic (13)
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5a. Re: THEORY: Loss of allophonic variation
Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" [email protected]
Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:33 pm ((PDT))
On Mar 26, 2012, at 10:40 AM, Alex Fink wrote:
> On Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:24:21 +0200, BPJ <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On 2012-03-26 02:46, Eric Christopherson wrote:
>>> Oh, yeah. Does anyone know how the*onset* of such a syllable was
> affected by the closedness of it?
>>
>> Yes, that's what I described: if the syllable was closed
>>
> [...]
>> Apparently the onset, and probably also the nucleus,
>> became relatively shorter when there was a coda.
>
> Right, presumably the *how* of the matter was some sort of isochrony rule:
> (non-initial) syllables were tendentially all kept at the same length (with
> perhaps some exception for proto-long onsets). So if there was a coda
> consonant, that entailed less room for the onset (or the V).
OK, so the stops that would end up as fricatives were originally short stops;
and I'm guessing they contrasted with the forerunners of the stops that now are
either short or long. Is that assumption correct?
If so, it reminds me of Sami's system of three distinctive lengths. I've been
trying to wrap my head around consonant gradation in Sami today, but I haven't
been able to discern if it's directly correlated to the Finnish gradations or
not.
Messages in this topic (9)
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6. Another vocabulary test
Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 29, 2012 4:59 am ((PDT))
Instead of picking words you know a definition for, in this one you
select one of four possible meanings for each word.
http://my.vocabularysize.com/
t.
Messages in this topic (1)
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