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From:
Charles Butler Date: Mon Jun 4, 2001 3:10 pm Subject: Re: FENEIS Conference - Porto Alegre Brasil | |
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Thanks for the encouragement. The Bilingual Dictionary is proceeding apace with many members of FENEIS here in Porto Alegre very much interested in helping to send signs for research. There are many dialects of Libras, with many variant signs. Mamae (mother) has at least six signs which I saw in use this weekend, and there was even a rather strong discussion between a Deaf person from Sao Paulo who was watching an interpreter use a variant sign from what she had learned in Sao Paulo saying "sinal errado" (that sign is wrong). The Deaf in Porto Alegre were very clear that their dialect is as good as any other dialect in Brasil, and that ALL communication needs to be respected. A dictionary that will list as many variations as we expect to find for various terms such as mamae, papae (I know three), verde (green - there are at least three or four I have seen) is going to be a challenge. We had Surdos (Deaf) and Ouvinte (Listening) persons for the weekend from Parana, Santa Catarina, and Bahia (three other states) and all of their sign languages have some variant signs. Because we are trying to make our process open (aberta) it will be a real joy to see the many variations in signs. It is like the six different words in Portuguese for the fruit we call "tangerine" in the U.S. In Bahia it is called one thing, in Porto Alegre, another, in Sao Paulo, something else, in Rio de Janeiro, a fourth thing, all for the fruit "tangerine". This, however we get it funded, will be an ongoing project for many years. Among other things we are making dominoes with Libras signs, possibly Bingo, and I just designed a poster in the Alfabeto Movimento to parallel the posters that the conference had on the Alfabeto Manual. It really helps, immediately, to show to the Deaf that their alfabet actually has between 69 and 70 classifiers as opposed to the 37 of the manual alphabet plus numbers. Plus it is an 'alfabet movimento', which makes all the difference in the world. Rather than 37 fingerspelling/numeric signs, as all sign language researchers know, all the classifiers have at least 8 rotations in space, and 6 basic orientations. We have been trying to think of a way to make a scrabble equivalent, and the only way I have thought of today, in my musings, is to take the 70 handshapes of Libras, in their six orientations, and put them on stickers to put on dice. Then with dice that show movements of left and right hands, and maybe a face and a body (remember old Stanley and Sheila, the Stick Family) one could learn Libras or ASL by playing games, rolling the dice, picking a couple of handshapes and seeing if one can think of signs that use them, either together or in a sentence or two in ASL or Libras. Talk about ideas fermenting in one's brain, I have been working 14 hours a day for two months now and I still keep thinking of ideas. I will certainly be keeping in touch with you and our many new friends in Brasil. Charles Butler --- Lorraine Crespin wrote: > It is exciting and encouraging to hear what is > happening in Brasil. Thank you > to all those that work so hard to bring SW to the > deaf students there. > Lorraine Crespin > albuquerque, NM > USA |
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