SignWriting List
January 27, 2000
Hello Everyone!
Oftentimes I receive documents written in SignWriting in signed
languages I do not know myself. For example, I do not know German
Sign Language or Brazilian Sign Language. Reading German signs, or
Brazilian signs are as foreign to me as reading German or Portuguese
words are...
But I can still edit the SignWriting in signed languages I do not
know, because SignWriting has nothing to do with meaning. We do not
write what the signs mean, we are writing how the signs are produced
- how they move or don't move...etc.
The best way to edit SignWriting is to be working in person, face to
face....If the person is actually standing in front of me showing me
the sign, that would be a great experience...or if I read and
reproduce the movements from the written page with the person telling
me if it is right or wrong, that is also an excellent way to edit
SignWriting - both are wonderful and very worthwhile ways of editing
SignWriting...
But obviously through email and typed SignWriter files there are
limits! Video clips solve the problem of my viewing the actual
movements, but we cannot attach video clips to the SignWriting List
messages, since they take up so much memory. If you all have trouble
reading .GIF files, I shudder to think what would happen if we
started sending each other movies! ...Let's stick to small .GIFs for
now!
But even without the video information I can still look at a document
written in a signed language I don't know, and find a few signs that
seem a little harder to read than others...these are minor
suggestions, but even minor suggestions can have value...
So in the next three email messages, I will send you three signs that
I have edited. I do not know what the signs mean, nor is that the
point. I would like to share with you how I find signs that seem
"hard to read"...which in turn may help you with your future
documents....
Val ;-)
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