SignWriting List Forum | |||
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From:
Trevor Jenkins Date: Tue Mar 14, 2000 7:15 pm Subject: Re: The View from Ringside | |
On Tuesday, 14 March, 2000 09:49:18, James Womack wrote: > Valerie Sutton wrote: > >> Let me give you an example. What does the word "English" mean? >> >> 1. a bunch of sounds that express concepts, uttered by groups of >> people in the western world >> 2. the order of those concepts in a sentence >> 3. how the sounds change depending on past and present tense!! Valerie forgot the most important one---an ethnic group of people living in the geo-political area known as England. Then the definition in 1. is slightly wrong in that it is only the language spoken in the aforementioned geo-political area. Pretender languages have to be prefixed with the name of the geo-political area in which that dialect is used, e.g. American English, Australian English. >> So SignWriting is not language....just as a, b and c are not - and >> placing German words in English order would not be writing >> English...would it? SignWriting is no more a lanaguage than is the Roman alphabet a language. The two of are nothing more than an agreed set of orthographic rules for transcribing a language. Exercise for the reader. Where do the smileys belong. :-) Regards, Trevor British Sign Language is not inarticulate handwaving; it's a living language. So recognise it now. -- <>< Re: deemed! |
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