[lojban] Re: sign language in Lojban

["Arika Okrent" <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

> More interesting (and you say 
> less devweloped) is
> whether ASL has a syntax different from English, even Signed English and 
> whether that might
> influence writing even if the words used were ordinary English, not 
> cheirography.

Whoa.  I usually try to limit my list responding playtime to once per day, but 
I feel compelled to respond here because if I have somehow communicated that 
the question of whether ASL syntax is different from English is not good and 
settled, then I have completely failed in my capacity as sign language 
spokesperson.

ASL syntax is totally different from English syntax.  However, when linguists 
talk about ASL syntax, they use English glosses for the signs for the sake of 
convenience.  Meaning I will write:

[MONEY]topic [I HAVE]neg.
'As for money, I don't have any

All caps are used to remind you that MONEY is just a label for the ASL sign 
for "money"--you could just as well call it Zarcon74, but that wouldn't be as 
convenient.  'topic' means the topicalization marker (an eyebrow raise/head 
tilt) lasts for the duration of the articulaion of MONEY.  'neg' means a 
negation marker (a head shake) lasts for the duration of the rest.  It's as if 
I wrote Spanish like this:

NO HAVE[1st pers] NOTHING OF MONEY.

You could totally describe Spanish syntax using this type of notation.

Signed English wishes it were the flip side of this coin -- a way of speaking 
English using ASL signs as glosses for the English words.  Except that it's 
hapazardly executed -- usually performed simultaneously with speech, which 
means a lot of important signs get dropped, which means the deaf people 
watching it lose about 30% of the information, which means it's a horrible 
bastard 'language' that has helped rob a generation of deaf kids of a good 
education. 

-arika

************
Arika Okrent
arika@okrent.com
http://www.wickedoasis.org/arika



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