SignWriting List Forum| Message 789 | Previous | Next [ Up Thread ] | Message Index |
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From:
Jerry Spillman Date: Tue Jan 5, 1999 2:03 am Subject: Re: Bilingualism & SignWriting | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Valerie Sutton wrote: > > Hello Everyone - > > As you can see, I receive lots of interesting questions regarding > SignWriting. Today I received a message asking this question: > > "Is SignWriting this Bilingualism thing that we hear so much about...?" This is only my uneducated opinion, but I think any of us who are involved in sign language are Bilingual. Bi meaning two and lingual meaning languages, my mind forces me to think that yes, we are involved in a form of Bilingualism. We are dealing with two groups of people, those who are, and have been forever deaf, and those who are hearing. In order for us to communicate with each other, we must, then, learn each other's language. It has become my philosophy, then, that since I use American English and American Sign Language, I should learn to write the American Sign Language in the format readable by the deaf (SignWriting), as well as I can write in American English, readable to those who will communicate in American English. That would mean that I have learned two language systems, and therefore, qualify as Bilingual. -- q¨ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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