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ETA: Apparently, my communication skills are really failing me tonight. This post was briefly locked, but I have had it pointed out to me that that's mishandling it too.
Basically, I'm a pile of giant fucking fail here, in one way or another, and I am not, right now, managing to work out how I should say what I'm trying to say, and am, instead, saying things that read like I don't want them to, and right now I can't fix that. So post is cut, enter at your own risk, and I will not be looking at the post, or at comments, until morning. /ETA
I think this has been percolating since Blog Against Disability Day. I can't find the link, but I read a post by a deaf person who talked about how, despite the fact that she could write in English well, it felt like an unnatural second language to her.
I've read and been told that sign language is not, in fact, a mapping of English to gestures; the syntax and modes of expression are actually different.
This makes perfect sense to me, as a linguist; a one-to-one mapping wouldn't be the best way to make sign a natural language.
What sort of doesn't make sense to me is that, therefore, sign doesn't have an accompanying orthography. For written communication, deaf people in English-speaking countries are expected to use English.
On the one hand, it's important for them to be fluent in the language of the society that surrounds them, in order to be able to communicate with the hearing.
On the other hand, though, this means that deaf people cannot write in their native language. They are literate in a second language, but forced to be illiterate in their native language.
This? Is a problem. One that needs solving. I might make an attempt at it if I were planning postgraduate studies in linguistics rather than history, but I don't actually think I'd be a good person to do it. I have zero fluency in sign language, and even if I were to learn, I would be learning it as an adult, and one learning it for purely academic purposes at that. Ideally, developing a written form of sign language should be done by someone who is fluent with it and grew up with it.
Since sound value correlation with orthographic symbols is totally irrelevant, there should be some kind of link between the alphabet/quasi-syllabary that is at least somewhat intuitive, so that someone reading it would have some idea of how to link it to the gestured, "spoken" form. It's fine if this takes memorisation, in the same way that learning to read English involves memorising the ways in which letters represent sounds, and are modified by other letters, etc, but it has to be doable and reasonably consistent.
The ideal person to do this is a deaf person with some training in linguistics, who has grown up with sign language, and who has some talent for graphic design, to develop an alphabet/font that is clear.
Obviously I still think deaf people should be taught the written language of their society, because isolating them from the ability to communicate with the hearing population is a Bad Thing, but I find it a troubling wrongness that deaf people are forced to be illiterate in their native language.
Actually, I've just had an idea. This is the Internet.
Some of you must know deaf people.
Clearly we need to get a bunch of deaf people, and interested graphically-talented people, and people with some linguistics knowledge together, and work together to make a kind of community project of developing the Sign Orthography. Preferably from several countries, in the hopes that Sign Orthography has at least some common usefulness internationally, since as far as I know not all sign languages are the same. The deaf people can work on it, with input from other people who want to help out, and linguists can watch and point out if they've made any obvious-to-linguists mistakes, or if they can see ways to solve any problems that crop up.
If it comes to something like "designing a written form of an existing language", there's no reason why we can't get a bunch of people together and do that, now is there?
*creates a comm*
[redacted]
Let's get on this. For reals. Let's make the world a better place.
Basically, I'm a pile of giant fucking fail here, in one way or another, and I am not, right now, managing to work out how I should say what I'm trying to say, and am, instead, saying things that read like I don't want them to, and right now I can't fix that. So post is cut, enter at your own risk, and I will not be looking at the post, or at comments, until morning. /ETA
I think this has been percolating since Blog Against Disability Day. I can't find the link, but I read a post by a deaf person who talked about how, despite the fact that she could write in English well, it felt like an unnatural second language to her.
I've read and been told that sign language is not, in fact, a mapping of English to gestures; the syntax and modes of expression are actually different.
This makes perfect sense to me, as a linguist; a one-to-one mapping wouldn't be the best way to make sign a natural language.
What sort of doesn't make sense to me is that, therefore, sign doesn't have an accompanying orthography. For written communication, deaf people in English-speaking countries are expected to use English.
On the one hand, it's important for them to be fluent in the language of the society that surrounds them, in order to be able to communicate with the hearing.
On the other hand, though, this means that deaf people cannot write in their native language. They are literate in a second language, but forced to be illiterate in their native language.
This? Is a problem. One that needs solving. I might make an attempt at it if I were planning postgraduate studies in linguistics rather than history, but I don't actually think I'd be a good person to do it. I have zero fluency in sign language, and even if I were to learn, I would be learning it as an adult, and one learning it for purely academic purposes at that. Ideally, developing a written form of sign language should be done by someone who is fluent with it and grew up with it.
Since sound value correlation with orthographic symbols is totally irrelevant, there should be some kind of link between the alphabet/quasi-syllabary that is at least somewhat intuitive, so that someone reading it would have some idea of how to link it to the gestured, "spoken" form. It's fine if this takes memorisation, in the same way that learning to read English involves memorising the ways in which letters represent sounds, and are modified by other letters, etc, but it has to be doable and reasonably consistent.
The ideal person to do this is a deaf person with some training in linguistics, who has grown up with sign language, and who has some talent for graphic design, to develop an alphabet/font that is clear.
Obviously I still think deaf people should be taught the written language of their society, because isolating them from the ability to communicate with the hearing population is a Bad Thing, but I find it a troubling wrongness that deaf people are forced to be illiterate in their native language.
Actually, I've just had an idea. This is the Internet.
Some of you must know deaf people.
Clearly we need to get a bunch of deaf people, and interested graphically-talented people, and people with some linguistics knowledge together, and work together to make a kind of community project of developing the Sign Orthography. Preferably from several countries, in the hopes that Sign Orthography has at least some common usefulness internationally, since as far as I know not all sign languages are the same. The deaf people can work on it, with input from other people who want to help out, and linguists can watch and point out if they've made any obvious-to-linguists mistakes, or if they can see ways to solve any problems that crop up.
If it comes to something like "designing a written form of an existing language", there's no reason why we can't get a bunch of people together and do that, now is there?
*creates a comm*
[redacted]
Let's get on this. For reals. Let's make the world a better place.
no subject
Alphabets are based on spoken language -- the characters are a visual notation for sounds. If one doesn't use sound to communicate, but gestures and pictures, why an alphabet for one's own non-verbal communication? It seems like it would be for the benefit of the hearing, rather than the deaf.
Disclaimer: I'm not deaf; I have no close friends or family who are. I did take courses in ASL ~1980 in California. At that point a good 1/4 of the course was discussing the immense differences between spoken language and signed language. It also taught that ASL isn't the same as signed English and that there's no one sign language since they each developed with input from the spoken languages around them.
no subject
So I'm done. This may be me failing harder, but you know, I have my own problems, and apart from anything else, if I end up back in hospital again this week they probably won't let me leave, and I really, really don't want that.
I am so very sorry for failing in turn.
Some dayas I really hate that words on a screen don't have gestures or tones, because reading mine after your comment I see how they could be hurtful, and they were *meant* to be gentle, not hurtful.
I apologise with my whole heart, and you are in my thoughts and prayers. I hope you will make it through the week intact, and I wish I could take back the pain I gave you.
Carys
Re: I am so very sorry for failing in turn.
Yesterday was hell, and then this post was a kind of thinking aloud, where I didn't think *through* well enough - which I acknowledge, and the fact that I have a disability that directly causes me to lack the ability to think things through doesn't change the fact that doesn't so causes problems. I upset people. I upset one person enough that she dropped me from her circle, which kind of hurt.
Especially since - in the best *Fail tradition - I meant well. On a crappy day, when I was short on reasons to think I even deserve to live, I seized on an idea to try and make something positive, in an area where I care really a lot. Language is *important*.
And I screwed up really, really badly, and upset people, and all that stuff, and... I recognise that, but I can't dwell. If nothing else, having skated the cusp of dangerous levels of blood loss yesterday, I can't afford to bleed more this week, and when I break down, there is, generally, blood.
For what it's worth, though I don't think you were at fault here, I forgive you completely for the degree to which I was upset further by your comment.
In ordinary situations, I am happy to accept criticism, and discuss the question of where and how I went wrong, but right now, I can't do that.
Re: I am so very sorry for failing in turn.
I spent several years self injuring badly when I was dealing with abuse memories. I understand the need and regret you have the necessity.
When we're both having good days sometime, I would love to talk language iwth you (not related dto this, just in general). My bits and pieces of knowledge is not academic at all, but I find language fascinating. (My stepfather keeps poking at me to read Worf's work and a couple others, which I grasp the ideas of but which are still far above where I can absorb written informatoin easily yet. But someday, I keep telling myself.)
ETA: and thank you. I appreciate that very much.