>It has long been my contention that the Sign Language dictionaries currently
>available contribute to the attitude that ASL is an off-shoot of the English
>Language rather than an independent language . Most, if not all of them,
>arrange the signs by the alphabetical arrangement of the sign's English
>glosses. This is not only insulting to ASL, but awkward to those
constructing
>such a resource. Choices must be made from the many glosses a single sign
may
>have to keep the size of the resource within bounds at the sacrifice of
>completeness.
>
>Richard
>
Interestingly enough, Dr Trevor Johnston's Australian Sign Language
dictionary,
the AUSLAN Dictionary, is arranged in "hand-shape" order enabling anyone
seeing an unfamiliar sign to look it up under its hand-shape. There is a
standard
English index in the back of the dictionary permitting the reader to look
up the
English word and then find its corresponding sign in the main part of the
book.
This dictionary has been available for ten years now, and it is into its
second
edition this year, under the title "Signs of Australia". A CD-ROM version has
also been produced. The dictionary has some 5000 basic signs.
Harry Blackmore
Dr Harry Blackmore
Tel: +61 8 9245 1474 Fax: +61 8 9245 1430
Mail: 43 Newborough St., Scarborough, Western Australia 6019
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