forum SignWriting List Forum
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From:  "Angus B. Grieve-Smith"
Date:  Fri Aug 6, 1999  6:13 pm
Subject:  Re: proper names


On Thu, 5 Aug 1999, Joe Martin wrote:

> Seems to me...
> We should all be careful about this "correct names" business. The
> correct name for anything is whatever the users of the language stick
> with-- ---and ain't nobody yet figgered out how to affect the process!

That's not entirely true, Joe. Various issues of authority can
influence those users to stick with one name or another. The relationship
between the Flemings and the Walloons is pretty sticky, and I'd imagine
the Flemings wouldn't be too happy to have a language that they don't
speak referred to as "Belgian Sign Language."

In actuality, though, the language we're talking about is English,
and it's hearing Americans like you and me who are the users of this
language. So what we stick with goes.

The point I'm trying to make is that we should get away from this
one-to-one mapping between spoken and signed languages. Why do the
initials for a signed language used in Brazil have to be in Portuguese,
and those for a signed language used in Belgium have to be in French, or
Flemish? Roman-based sign writing systems have the advantage that you can
have initials in the signed language, not in some spoken language.

--
-Angus B. Grieve-Smith
Linguistics Department
The University of New Mexico



  Replies Author Date
1642 Re: proper names Ingvild Kristine Roald Sun  8/8/1999
1645 Re: proper names Valerie Sutton Sun  8/8/1999
1647 Re: proper names Michael Everson Sun  8/8/1999
1650 Re: proper names Michael Everson Sun  8/8/1999
1652 Re: proper names Valerie Sutton Sun  8/8/1999
1654 Re: proper names Michael Everson Mon  8/9/1999
1655 Re: proper names Valerie Sutton Tue  8/10/1999
1656 Re: proper names Michael Everson Tue  8/10/1999
1657 Re: proper names Valerie Sutton Tue  8/10/1999

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