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From:
"Angus B. Grieve-Smith" Date: Wed Jun 6, 2001 11:48 am Subject: Re: Hard-to-Write Handshapes | ||||||||
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On Wed, 30 May 2001, Charles Butler wrote: > We have all been looking to make SW universal, but if the system > begins to become fuzzy, rather than truly the equivalent of the > International Phonetic Alphabet" in which "a" for example represents > the sound in "father" NOT in hate, so SW needs to be consistent, from > top to bottom. If your position X (the first one) which has been used > for Father for over 20 years now is to be changed, then change it, > don't give a "variant" writing. I hate to say this, Charles, but the reason the IPA is so rigid is that it is used only by trained professionals for specific tasks. Even so it's a little "fuzzy." When something is used for everyday writing by lots of people, it's impossible to control. Variants spring up, it gets even more "fuzzy." This has happened to every writing system, no matter how perfect it was to start with. And people who make dictionaries have no choice but to deal with this fact. So SignWriting can remain rigidly controlled, but only if it's restricted to a small group of scholars. In that case, it will never really be used for writing. I think Valerie alluded to this when she made the distinction between Movement Writing and SignWriting. And don't forget that the language (Libras in this case) varies now, and will change as time goes on, creating different pronunciations of different signs. These will eventually need to be incorporated into a dictionary. I think eventually signed-language dictionaries will be structured like our English dictionaries: with the various written forms, followed by pronunciation guides, and then the rest of the information. For now, the best thing is to put up with a little "fuzziness." -- -Angus B. Grieve-Smith Linguistics Department University of New Mexico | ||||||||
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