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From:
Valerie Sutton Date: Wed Nov 4, 1998 5:42 pm Subject: Phonetic-Phonemic | |
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On Mon, 2 Nov 1998, Ulrike Zeshan wrote: >I would still like to know whether sign writing has evolved in >this sense, i.e. in the direction of writing more phonemically instead of >phonetically. Surely you must have known, for example, which handshapes to >choose from the maybe 150 or so phonetically occurring handshapes. I am >sure you didn't use all. So how did it happen? Comments about this may >help me to think about the application of sign writing to Indopakistan >Sign Language. Thanks for any hints. >Yours >Ulrike Zeshan >University of Cologne ________________________________ November 4, 1998 Yes, SignWriting most definitely has been evolving from phonetic to phonemic. It has also gone from phonemic to phonetic at times, depending on the writer's needs. How did this take place? It was a natural process over time. We wrote and wrote and wrote ASL signs, until we noticed that we were writing some commonly used signs a certain way, and that we repeated the same "sign spellings" for those commonly used signs...so the "honed-down" writing of certain signs happened automatically out of usage. Sometimes I think people want to skip the natural process and jump to the finished product - but it is my belief that it takes time for phonemic spellings to occur in a natural way. And I feel that the process should be natural and not forced. I would be happy to take a look at a video of the signed languages you are studying, to tell you what handshapes seem to happen the most - but I think you can see that for yourself too. Mainly you need to write signs a lot, to start seeing the patterns, and then reduce to more phonemic spellings by testing it with Deaf people native to the signed languages you are studying. Show them the writing to find out what can and cannot be read - and slowly you will be able to simplify the writing of the signs. Anyone who tries to write a new signed language today in SignWriting is better off than those who tried 10 or 20 years ago, because there is a foundation to build upon now. By writing different signed languages for 25 years, we have experience. For example we now know that writing down the page in vertical columns is a blessing for all signed languages...so in many ways, Ulrike, your task is not as difficult as it was before. I will be happy to help all I can. Thanks for writing - Valerie :-) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Valerie Sutton at the DAC Deaf Action Committee for SW SignWriting https://www.SignWriting.org Center For Sutton Movement Writing an educational nonprofit organization Box 517, La Jolla, CA, 92038-0517, USA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
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