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From:  Fernando Capovilla
Date:  Sun Mar 10, 2002  10:51 pm
Subject:  thanks & good news & invitation

Thanks for your words, Angus.
And thank you too, dear Valerie.
Yes, Val, we have 2 good news. Thank for mentioning.
The first:
We have concluded the CD ROM version of the Trilingual encyclopedic illustrated dictionary of Brazilian Sign Language (Libras), complete with a menu driven sign retrieval system that allows retrieving any Libras Sign simply by clicking on parameters, cheremes, and allochers. The more allochers one chooses, the more narrowed the search is, starting with 5,000 lexical signs and ending with the desired one. We are working now on a new graphic sign based interface to complement (and eventually replace) the Portuguese based one. It shall be done in May, when we will begin looking for sponsors to publish this beautiful CD along with a printed manual. In case you know of international agencies interested in sponsoring the publication and distribution of high quality instructional materials for deaf children, please let us know.
The second:
We are concluding a new series of 16 books with 400-700 pages each titled: The Brazilian Deaf World in Libras that is to become instrumental in implementing a high quality bilingual education for the 2 million Brazilian Deaf people in Brazil. Valerie is writing a foreword. We would like to invite those of you, our colleagues, who teach deaf children and who have had nice experience with SignWriting to write a 2-3 page text telling us about your positive experience, so that we may include it in our book as a testimony of the power of SignWriting. For instance, a report of the wonderful story of SignWriting in the Escuelita de Bluefields in Nicaragua would be wonderful. Judy and James Shepard-Kegl could you write a brief text summarizing your unique and wonderfully successful experience? I would also like to invite Cecilia Flood (Albuquerque) and Stefan Woehrmann (Germany), among other dear colleagues, to do the same. The idea is to collect experiences and experiments that demonstrate the importance of providing instructional materials to deaf children in their own sign language and written in SignWriting.
Thanks for the attention.
Fernando Capovilla
 
 
 
Date:    Fri, 8 Mar 2002 13:55:05 -0500
From:    "Angus B. Grieve-Smith" <grvsmth@UNM.EDU>
Subject: Re: hieroglyphs were used for phonetic encoding by Egyptians,
         as demonstrated by Champollion s work

On Fri, 8 Mar 2002, Fernando Capovilla wrote:

> Let us not forget that hieroglyphs were used for phonetic encoding by
> Egyptians, as demonstrated by Champollion =B1=B1 work.

=Took the words out of my mouth, Fernando!  I took part of a course
in Middle Egyptian in college, and they most definitely had an alphabet.

=Hieroglyphics contain both logographic and alphabetic symbols,
similar to the way that Chinese characters are used in conjunction with
alphabetic symbols in Japanese and Korean.  The alphabetic symbols
represent consonants and semivowels, much like the present-day Arabic and
Hebrew alphabets.  There are also a number of symbols that stand for
sequences of sounds, and can be combined with alphabetic symbols in the
style of a rebus.

------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 9 Mar 2002 07:58:34 -0800
From:    Valerie Sutton <Sutton@SIGNWRITING.ORG>
Subject: Re: hieroglyphs were used for phonetic encoding by Egyptians,
         as demonstrated by Champollion ±±  work

Fernando Capovilla wrote:
>SignWriting is a writing system. By the way, what is meant by "real"?

SignWriting List
March 9, 2002

Hello Fernando! Nice to see you posting on the List again ;-)

The SW List is such a positive group of people! Whenever I am on the
List, it feels like the whole world is open to new ideas, and accepts
that SignWriting is used around the world...Of course, it IS used
around the world ...but that is because of people like you,
Fernando...Your Brazilian Sign Language Encyclopedic Dictionary is
pretty impressive!

Brazilian Sign Language Dictionary
https://www.SignWriting.org/brazil/brazil21.html

And I understand that you are working on a new series of
dictionaries...is that right? Perhaps you could tell us a little
about your new projects, when you have time...I know you are
extremely busy...

Regarding the comment that "SignWriting is not a real writing system"
....I believe that comes from people who have never seen it before,
and have never thought about it either....I guess "real" to them
means "established" or "something that looks exactly like the Roman
alphabet"...
--
Val ;-)

Valerie Sutton
Sutton@SignWriting.org

SignWritingSite:
https://www.SignWriting.org

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SW-L@ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA

--

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