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From:
Valerie Sutton Date: Wed Jun 6, 2001 2:38 pm Subject: Re: Hard-to-Write Handshapes | |
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Angus B. Grieve-Smith wrote: >>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. SignWriting List June 6, 2001 Thank you, Angus, for this excellent point. I appreciate your thoughtful answers. And you are right, we do walk a tightrope between the flexible and the rigidly controlled. All writing systems do. So my discussions about Movement Writing and SignWriting, are my way of handling those issues... I think your point is well taken, that no writing system, and no language, stands still. Living, breathing writing systems do change, and that is a natural evolution that cannot be avoided if the writing system is truly being used. And I am doing my best to document these naturally evolving changes, and I try to teach people the differences, so they can make their own choices. For example, changing from Receptive to Expressive was an quite a shock for the Signwriters in the mid-1980s...They had all learned Receptive, and then they had to learn to switch to Expressive...I got lots of complaints...There are still some people who write Receptively today, but since the majority of Deaf people prefer Expressive, and since we are publishing in Expressive, it became the norm anyway. And now most people seem happy with that change...smile...at least I hope so! Val ;-) |
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