SignWriting List Forum| Message 825 | Previous | Next [ Up Thread ] | Message Index |
|
SignWriting List Forum |
|||
|
|
From:
Bill Reese Date: Thu Jan 7, 1999 5:57 am Subject: Re: Yeow! | |
|
Ok, that settles it. Let's drop signwriting and just learn Chinese... ;-) Charles Butler wrote: > > It's not a bad question at all. I have heard from a Tibetan Buddhist > friend of mine that Tibetan Monastery Sign Language may have formed some > of the basis for Chinese calligraphy, precisely because Tibetan monks > formed the backbone of the court system and wished a way to write ideas > down which would not be based upon any one of the many Chinese > dialects. Instead, they wrote the language of the monastery, Tibetan > sign language, and taught scribes the assignment of various > "pronunciations" of the characters. Mandarin is not Cantonese is not > Han, but they all use the same "character" meaning "horse". > > The Tibetan sign language shapes follow the hands as they move in > actually writing some of the characters. Whenever I have given an > overview of Sign Writing, I have used that as an example, saying, "don't > anyone ever tell you that a civilization cannot be built on a written > language which is not a spoken one -- Chinese has been doing it for over > 4000 years". |
|