forum SignWriting List Forum
  Message 3086  |  Previous | Next  [ Up Thread ] Message Index
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!

  Message 3086  |  Previous | Next  [ Up Thread ] Message Index