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From:
William McGruder Date: Fri Aug 27, 1999 6:49 pm Subject: Re: question to linguists... | ||||||||
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In a message dated 8/27/99 6:15:17 AM Pacific Daylight Time, writes: << On Thu, 26 Aug 1999, William McGruder wrote: > So perhaps what's really needed here is a new classification of > writing systems. Ideograms and syllabries and phonemes (root word > phono, sound) and alphabets don't really apply, IMHO, to Sign > Languages. Maybe we could coin a new word for a spoken language to > describe this: Gesteme, using the root of Gesture. Obviously a word > for the Sign Languages isn't needed as, AFIK, "Sign" is used. Stokoe actually did this back in 1960, with his "cheremes" from a Greek root meaning gesture. In the 70s people argued that what signers do is cognitively equivalent to phonology, so they don't need a separate word. Hence, "cherology" never took hold, and "sign phonology" became the consensus. >> Well, what's one more oxymoron in English :) Personally, I feel that calling the separate Signs by any word with "phono" or any other variation of "sound" trivializes the validity of Sign Languages as languages. That's just my opinion, though. Cheers! -William J. "Chip" McGruder Monterey, California | ||||||||
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