What you, Judy A. Kegl wrote to me. received Thu, Aug 19 at 00:03 CEST
|> I am intrigued by the question "are there any problems that make writing a
|> sign language MORE difficult than writing spoken languages in (roman)
|> letters?" (emphasis added)
|>
|> Writing signs means going changing a visual communication system (a sign
|> language) into another kind of VISUAL communication (writing). Going from a
|> spoken language to a written one, on the other hand, requires changing an
|> aural system into a visual one. I would expect it easier to stay within
|> visual mediums than to adapt an aural system into a visual one. I think the
|> query is better phrased: "What are the characteristics that make writing a
|> sign language EASIER than writing spoken languages in roman letters?"
|>
maybe its just because my knowledge of sign laguage is rather
poor ...
spoken language is a series of phonemes, that can
be translated into a series of
lexemes. that is: both systems are SERIAL.
sign language in contrast seems to me to be some kind of
PARALLEL. means there is MORE than only a series of phonemes
but also location in space which is to be recognized
in parallel.
so there is MORE information to be written down in one.
to write sign language you have to write down quite a few
aspects. a spatial relation, a facial expression AND a movement.
so it seems to me that the construction of a system to put all these
on paper must be much more sophisticated than a numer of letters
you can put in a row to form words and sentences.
that is, what makes me think writing sign language must be
more difficult than writing spoken language.
thanks
--
Martin "Lolly" Lorenz
Microsoft, I think, is fundamentally an evil company.
- JAMES H. CLARK
https://hasiti.mir.at/~martin
the more daring thing mostly is
to question the known
than to explore the unknown
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