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From:
Fernando Capovilla Date: Fri Feb 12, 1999 1:01 pm Subject: question & samples | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I'm sending you an excerpt page from our new Brazilian Sign Language Dictionary, namely three Brazilian signs that use a similar handshape and movement (BEAUTIFUL, AMAZON, STEAL). They have been converted in a hurry into three .GIF files, and the graphic quality of the images has suffered considerably in the process. I apologize for that. Even so, perhaps you may still identify the drawings. We would be obliged should you help us write these signs using SW. One of our difficulty is that all fingers move one by one (from little finger to thumb), and not simultaneously. The movement is the same, but each finger starts closing only after its predecessor has already closed some 30 degrees, in a sucession from little finger to thumb. In the sign STEAL, the result is similar to a spiral turning inward. The palm itseft begins open and ends closing in itself, as if it were a shell. There must be a similar movement in ASL, we are sure, but our deaf informant on ASL is not here right now. So I can't give you an equivalent ASL at the moment. Should you be so kind as to, at your earliest convenience, write them in SW this would allow us to be able to keep on working toward using SW for documenting the Brazilian Sign Language used in Sao Paulo. By the way, perhaps you will be glad to know that there is a growing consensus and productive cooperation among deaf people from different institutions in here. They're so excited about both the dictionary and SW that they've been "spreading the sign" (so to speak) about them. We're already with about 30 deaf co-workers and the revision process is going well. Thank God. Wonderful people! The dictionary is thriving and we already have 600 out of the final estimated 900 pages. The posting of further lessons on details on writing finger movements will be of great help. Last year, one of our most dear deaf coworkers, Sylvia Greenspan and I translated all the SW lessons from English to Portuguese. She has been using that material to teach her colleagues who are very curious about it. She taught classes on SW to the deaf kids at the EMEDA (a Sao Paulo City School for the Deaf), and is already teaching a full SW course to her kids this academic year (which has just started in Brazil). The dictionary will rovide the necessary thrust. Thank you. Fernando & lab crew at the University of Sao Paulo :-) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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