I am a hearing person, and I'm only just starting to learn my country's sign language, but here are my two cents. As a sign language student, ASLwrite has been very useful in jotting down new signs I find without having to write down a whole description or, even worse, attempt to draw them; also when preparing presentations for class, an ASLwrite script is much better than a simple gloss. I also think it could have a use in literature; yes, some of the information would be lost from the performer to the written page, but that's also true of written versions of spoken languages (and people still read poetry). Written sign language literature would allow for people who maybe need a little more time understanding things to read at their own pace, go back to re-read passages they didn't fully comprehend, or even skip ahead when necessary. It would also help students take notes in class without having to translate into / think in english first.
Using for notes does make sense! Very good point, someone else mentioned something similar about being able to go back, or go at their own pace and not have stop/rewind the video.
As for technological limitations.... Unicode has hundreds if not thousands of glyphs for every Chinese/Japanese/Vietnamese character in existence, as well as nearly all possible Korean Hangul combinations, so there you go.
I am a strong advocate for writing in all types of languages, be they oral, signed, or even iconographic. There is plenty of good reason for having a static representation of a something dynamic. By "dynamic", I mean moving, changing, sounding out, vibrating... etc. How do I explain this? Your video is eight minutes and 27 seconds. That means it took that amount of time for your audience to receive all the information that you wanted to express. On the other hand, you have a parallel blog post of this video, written in English. If I were to dictate it in its entirety, one word at a time, I would probably arrive at a similar time frame by the time I got to the end, maybe even faster. But since it is in writing, I am able to receive and process that information in three minutes or less. That's the magic of speed-reading, and it can only be made possible by divorcing the information from its dynamic element (i.e. speech) and capturing it in a static depiction. That way, readers can receive the same amount of information at their own pace. Likewise, with signed languages, you can take a video lasting several minutes long, transcribe it in a few sentences, and a fluent signer who is literate in their language's writing system of choice can read it in probably less than a minute. That is the inherent advantage of a written medium - it doesn't need to occupy time.
The most important (to me) aspect of having a widespread writing system is that it could really help "standardize" ASL. Dictionaries would be MUCH faster, easier, and cheaper to make, as well as being way more accessible. Another thing I really like about writing is that it is timeless. The image of a writing communicates information that otherwise needs to be replayed *over time* as a video. And lastly, I really want a writing system because it can be used to make still visual arts. I can't imagine I'm the only one that would like a cool t-shirt with stylized but readable ASL on it; it's just so cool!
I think there's a lot of benefits to written sign that you didn't touch on. One, videos are not a good substitute for the written word. Videos are high bandwidth, and preserving video is much harder than writing. Imagine trying to preserve an entire ASL interpretation of say the book Moby Dick for example, probably all filmed at like 25GB, and then having a book version at only a few MB. Videos can't be printed and don't survive hard drive breakdowns. Many cloud services are happy with small text files but not huge videos. But there's another benefit...searching. You can't search a video. Take the Moby Dick example, you have to watch the whole thing to find a certain part, then write the timecode of that part. You can't even refer to the same part of the book in a different interpretation. Like right now even, you can't search in ASL. You have to search in English and then put "ASL" after it. This makes ASL a second class citizen instead of the first class language that it is. Me, personally, I think SignWriting is the future...these other systems (si5s) seem lame in comparison. There's already an ASL Wikipedia using SignWriting for example.
So? The world hasn't been designed with pen-to-paper writing in mind since the 90's, perhaps early 00's. SignWriting can be written, but since few people do that regularly anymore, it hardly matters. ;)
SignWriting is written by hand all of the time. The style you see online is called SignWriting Block Printing. This style is used for publishing. The style written by hand is called SignWriting Cursive. This style is used with pen and paper. www.signpuddle.net/wiki/index.php/SignWriting_Script/
In Mexico, my mom studied to be a recording secretary, meaning she would sit in during meetings and write down everything people said. Now, obviously she can't write everything she hears at the same speed they're speaking if she writes letter by letter so they taught her a special way of writing using lines, curves, and dots. Even then, they had to find a way to shorten it to keep up so she had to get rid of some words and rearrange the grammar so that she could still read it later when she transferred it into a document to keep in the official records. Something like that would be very helpful in situations like lectures, meetings, quick note writing, or other instances in which videos would take up too much space/ memory or even when people don't have access to a recording device! I do think a written version of signing would be very helpful!
There's a lot of really good comments here already, but I really enjoy the idea of a symbol representing a handshape with a motion attached. Had sign grown off a template like that, I imagine there would be "base" handshapes, similar to the way english words can be torn apart into latin roots. I also kinda like the idea of the language essentially having a written instruction sheet. In the same way origami instructions present valley or mountain folds with symbols, you could have a text book teaching ASL with letters instead of a series of pictures. Lifespeak has the instructions for dinosaur: -The sign for dinosaur uses a flattened "O" handshape to show a dinosaur walking past. The arm bounces up and down a bit (as if taking steps) as it travels in front of you. You could show that in 1 symbol, and essentially compress that whole definition to an O with a squiggly line. That would be FANTASTIC in a printed sign language dictionary, and especially great for classwork and textbooks.
That was all very interesting. As a "Hearing" person, I would have never thought about that. I believe that ANY way that two people or more can communicate, is a GOOD way. : ) Keep communicating with us here in the UA-cam world! I enjoy hearing your comments about various topics.
I'm just starting to learn sign languages as a hearing person (ASL and JSL), and I really like the idea of being able to write down signs. It's up to the community whether they adopt it for communication and literature, but even if no one else uses it I can still see it being useful simply for recording things for myself. As for being able to write a Facebook post in ASL, I think that day might not be too far off if someone puts in the necessary work. Essentially the challenge is in writing a proposal to the Unicode Consortium, but I'm fairly sure ASLwrite is starting to meet the criteria for inclusion.
having a written form of ASL would be so cool it may not be necessary in this day and age, but the idea of Deaf culture literally not having to know English sounds interesting. Si5s seems promising thank you for introducing this idea I'm definitely going to check this out!
William Burns I am so curious, is it actually feasible that with a written form, knowing English would become entirely unnecessary? I find this confusing - there are still a tremendous number of words that are fingerspelled, it seems. And wouldn't many of the signs still be based on English letters? Very curious about opinions on this. Thanks!
That's a good question. I think English would still be required for us to know, since we live in a country (the US) where English is the primary language of use. And yes, in ASL, there are A LOT of fingerspelled words. However, ASL signers are trying very hard to move away from that, and words that use English letters. There are some signs that are technically spelled but have become a sign of its own, they're called lexicalized fingerspelling/signs. I'm planning to make a video on that eventually! Another thing, it does seem like ASL is based on English, but that's only because of how most people learn ASL (and language really). If you were born and raised with ASL, then learned English later, you might think English is based on ASL!
Rogan!!! Thank you for being brave to discuss written ASL! :) Of course we disagree a bit on video being writing -- the playback time supports expression more than it does reception. Its so important for us to have an ability to visually process information on our own timing. Videos force us to follow the pace of speakers and don't have a way to easily jump into sections. Plus what happens when the power's out? It's good to have a way to write things down quickly. Others have said similar things -- did they change your mind yet? Also, have you asked the ASLwrite community your great question of incorporating writing in daily life yet ? -- its in my daily life but I'm fluent so I passed the "hill of difficulty" to get to this point. Keep on thinking and asking questions!!
That's true, it does support expression more than reception. Good point about the power. :P I never said I was against sign writing! I even said I am for it, it's just the "hill of difficulty" as you say, and actually committing to learning how to write in it :)
Rogan Shannon I didn't think that you are against it - just more of why, when have this? I think people are so used to written English that they feel vulnerable when writing ASL. The "hill of difficulty" is very uncomfortable and not everyone is able to "sit" with that discomfort -- to work through it to the other side.
Fair enough. I don't have a problem with that discomfort, I have learned multiple other languages (both written and signed)! I agree that writing ASL is a very different process than any other written language. I just need to throw myself into learning, and go from there :)
Reading and writing are so much more than putting one sign after the other. Both of these activities do not need to be thought of as linear. My two favorite books on the topic are "How to read a book" and "Writing the natural way". For reading, imagine you have a 400 page book and only 5 minutes to spend to determine if the book is worth more of you time. You could read the back of the book, the table of contents, the glossary, and then maybe skim through the book, reading an interesting paragraph here or there. With only 5 minutes, you can get a really nice overview of a book including the authors main ideas and the general structure. Now imagine trying to do this with a 20 hour video series. For writing, a great technique is called clustering (or mind mapping), where you put the main idea in the center of a page and then cluster around the idea. It's like a tree diagram in 2-dimensional space. As you expand the tree, you'll usually get a sudden insight into your topic of how everything relates together and about what you want to write. This is the time to stop the 2D clustering and to then start the actual written piece. This 2 part writing process splits the creative process and produces writing that is much more organized, original, and interesting than a simple written piece where you just start writing. And of course editing is an entirely different process with its own skills and objectives. If you need to change the fifth sign of the second paragraph, how do you do that with video? Editing becomes even more complicated when you consider group editing, such as available on the ASL Wikipedia. When multiple people are editing a page, how to you combine and merge all of their writing? Since the ASL Wikipedia uses text, you can simply update a sign by rewriting it. If you want to replace fingerspelling with a real sign, again you just simply edit the text. For reading, writing, and editing, video is a poor substitute for text. The same is true for voice recordings. I can't imagine writing a 500 word essay if I was only able to use a voice recorder.
*Is learning ASL and gets better talking with deaf co-workers* *See's si5s and becomes intimidated* lol All joking aside, it makes sense. I would be nice for making notes. Also, having a unique writing form would be cool.
What do you think of the Stokoe notation system? As a non-native signer, I like it, mostly because it gives me access to dictionaries and it uses mostly symbols that are anyone's keyboard. I know that SignWriting is in Unicode, but I can't find any way to type it, which is frustrating when it theoretically possible.
The Stokoe Notation system is great for taking notes, basic writing, etc. but it's not 100% effective for all ASL signs. That's why it's called a notation system - not a writing system. SignWriting is in Unicode, yes, though I have no idea how to use it. I don't like how it looks however. It's not very fluid, and a bit jarring to me. Feels a bit like looking at someone signing in 8-bit :P
Great video. I'm a hearing person, and I really like the idea of written signs too. One thing I like about written text is that you can quickly scan it to find something, or even use a "find in page" feature if it's on a computer. In short, I think there are a lot of benefits to having both videos and written texts. If videos had easily searchable transcripts (and timestamps?), maybe that could work really well. I'm thinking that they wouldn't necessarily have to be translated into English sentences, but could have English words (or French, Japanese, etc), punctuation, and sign language syntax. But I'm not sure how well this would go in practice.
That is definitely a big benefit of having written things rather than video. This is why I now create blog posts that are kind of the equivalent of transcripts for my videos, so people can search them quickly or read if they prefer.
As a hearing person learning ASL I often wish there was a more efficient way of writing ASL when I'm working on something for class. Honestly though, it's just for my convenience.
Hearing but ASL teacher and former Deaf Ed teacher here. I think having a writing system would help legitimize ASL as a language for the institutions that are lagging behind, like schools for offering it as a world language and places still not understanding the necessity for interpreters. I believe I have read that Gallaudet accepts si5s as it's preferred method of sign writing. I am not a fluent written in either si5s nor SignWrite but when I explored them, I thought SignWrite would be easier to read and harder to write. I also thought it looked like drawing signs in many ways and I didn't want that. Si5s looks more like the next generation of a writing system where it has naturally developed into a set of symbols. I also think it might be easier for the general public to accept symbols representative of visuals because their/our English language has symbols representative of sound. More drawn-like symbols may not be taken seriously for longer. Just some of my thoughts
Interesting perspective! I'm curious, when you say SignWrite, are you talking about the system created by Sutton? Or ASLWrite, which was created by Adrean Clark? They're completely different things, ASLWrite is more similar to si5s.
@@RoganShannon13 I was talking about the system referenced in the video that was not si5s. I apologise if I got the name wrong. Is it 'Sign Writing'? I am recently familiar with ASLwrite as a system (still not able to use it) and as far as I could tell ASLwrite is si5s but free/public and the only major differences are ones that have happen since the split in creators. Again I have not done a deep dive into the ASLwrite system nor the si5s system so I don't know if there are any differences.
What I'm referencing in the video is just ASLWrite or si5s. The symbols I show on screen are from si5s. Yes, ASLWrite and si5s are very similar and the differences are from when the creators of si5s split. From what little I know of each, ASLWrite has evolved more than si5s, based on community use. But I'm really not the right person to ask about this haha
@@RoganShannon13 same. I am aware of them but not able to use them. I thought there was mention of Sign Writing as a system in the video but regardless, it is one of the other systems of writing signs. It is the one by Sutton you mentioned earlier. Knowing what that system looks like, helps make my original comment make sense. It's quite different than ASLwrite and si5s and I still prefer the symbolification of ASLwrite/si5s to Sign Writing.
I thought about this question for years. This TV show, "Revolution," it is about the world without electricity which means no access to any kind of technology. What will be next as our back up to preserve sign language? This is my most fear about no electricity access, I usually watch these videos to feel "interact" for a little bit. It is hard to imagine living without videos, I mean- videos are the best and mandatory for lives! :-D
That's a good point! Someone else said something similar, with writing it's more permanent than video because videos require something to store them and view them.
For actual everyday communication like social media posting, written ASL is not really practical especially since with smartphones uploading videos and images is so well integrated into so many platforms. But I think that it is something that has value beyond "coolness" (I say this as a linguist who squees every time she sees a new script). For formal or academic contexts it's important to be able represent information in a precise format. To me that means it must be both unambiguous, and concise. Music has its own notation, chemistry has its own system, and so on. It's something that would be great for talking *about* ASL (like how you compare different signs being used for new words) rather than just talking in ASL (everyday business and conversation). I agree that we aren't there yet, but back before non-english scripts were supported on phones, Arabic speakers figured out a way to add in missing sounds by using "7" "5" and "3". People in all sorts of communities are coming up with on the fly solutions to limitations in our current online communication systems. So it might work itself out sooner than expected.
As for your concern about written ASL being in its infancy, and being unsure about what's the "correct" way to write something, do recall that throughout its longe Historie of Development, Peuple were very liberal with thaire Spelling, and there was nary one proper Waye to wryte a Pasage. Were ye to rede the original Workes of Shakespeare, ye wold cringe at the inconsistant and abyssimal Ways in which Fowlk wrote ye olde Playes that we would consider ye classic Artes todaye. English would not have a prescriptive orthography until centuries later. So just do what your antecedents did, and write in a way that's comfortable and understandable to you. As the ASL writing community develops, so will orthographic conventions and "proper" writing.
Such a good topic to discuss. I agree with your practical issues with a written system for ASL in that, is it really helping communicate in the everyday? BUT as a speech pathology student with linguistic/Deaf Studies minors headed to Gallaudet for grad school, I would love to see a more unified, strong written form that can capture all the parameters of ASL. SLPs are constantly getting language samples and breaking them down into parts for evaluations, and I think having a way to jot down signs produced by clients would be helpful in the clinical setting AND for research purposes. Thanks for your insights, and would love to see a video on some basic written ASL!
I definitely think that signwrite could be very useful in an academic context, especially in linguistics and Deaf Studies. I doubt I will ever make a video on this, unless I really improve my writing skills. I am at a VERY basic level, and I would defer to others who actually use this on a daily basis.
That was a very interesting topic. I enjoyed "reading" the video? 👍 I am trying to watch your videos with CC on and the going back and watching again and trying to keep up with the speed in which you sign. I have trouble reading the CC and watching you at the same time. so I find the words on the screen have no context without you behind them .
Rogan Shannon Ive never been good with subtitles and I can't seem to divide my attention between reading words and you. I want to watch you, to learn from your ASL and to enjoy your videos. so cc first and then you :)
I've been thinking of a writing system with the Roman alphabet, numbers, and English punctuation to avoid the problem with technology you talked about. I can't imagine ASLWrite or si5s really becoming popular because of the problem. It would include abbreviations for the 5 parameters of sign, using Roman characters, and combine them to create each sign. It seems pretty easy to learn and use to me, but I bet there are are problems. 1. Placement: s=shoulder, t=torso, n=nose, f=front 2. Handshape: capital letter or number for hand shape 3. Orientation: maybe punctuation marks like ^ = up, < = left, > = right, -- = forward, 4. Movement: abbreviations for movement: crx=crossing, trst=thrusting, smrot= small rotating, lgrot = large rotating, pl=pulling 5. Expression: more punctuations, maybe? /\ = eyebrows up, \/ = eyebrows down, ( ) = puffy cheeks f5^smrot\/ = front location, 5 hand shape, small rotating, eyebrows down = where f1- = front location, 1 hand shape, forward orientation, no movement, no expression = you t10-pl = torso, 10 hand shape, pulling movement, no expression = live f5^smrot\/ f1- t10-pl = WHERE YOU LIVE Critique?
Hmm, that's a possibility. I know some other people have thought about this, and created some system. However, I feel like it would take a lot of thinking to "set up" the sign, while with ASLWrite/si5s, it's a bit more intuitive.
Oh, I'll have to look into them. (pshhhhh...thought I was being original XP). I bet this would become pretty intuitive after some practice. After all, English letters don't visually represent the sounds they stand for, and you don't have to sound out each word to write (after first grade). Probably less intuitive than the others though. P.S. Are video comments not a thing anymore? Or does each UA-camr en/disable them individually?
+Elliot Holland that is true, just like any other language. You have to use it to become good at it. And I mentioned this in my #NotMyUA-cam video, sadly they're not a thing anymore. If they were, I'd definitely have them enabled.
I have been developing such an alphabetic writing system for ASL over the last ten years. When I am using my own system, the letters have become pretty intuitive. Every writing system has to trade-off being accurate with being quick to write. Chinese decided to keep the pictures, but children only know about 5,000 words by the time they enter high school. English prefers short words and so borrows words from over ten different languages, but an English dictionary can have over 500,000 words - ten times the size of most languages like French or German. The main problem with all the ASL writing systems is having plenty of examples to imitate and people who would like to use them everyday. It takes a whole village to raise a child.
FYI: Here is a page where someone went through a lot of effort researching and comparing ten different ASL writing systems. aslfont.github.io/Symbol-Font-For-ASL/ways-to-write.html
So, this reply might get lengthy...but here it goes. First of all, thank you so much for responding to my comment with a video, and taking the time to do so. I will be buying you some cups of "ko-fi." So, until watching this video I was only partially aware that ASLwrite and si5s were developed together and diverged later on to develop individually. To address the differences in si5s and ASLwrite and the use of handshapes in the two are very important in how the written system can progress. I do agree that si5s(in it's original form) can be daunting. However, what we are learning is si5s in a more developed form. Now it has since developed from that book to, very much like ASLwrite, to throw out the basic handshapes and how they change to include just the handshapes themselves. I'm assuming because the old way was to confusing or outdated or whatever. As far as a public community where they discuss the way you write the signs, like the Facebook group, I guess you could say the class and the ASL program at my college is like a public community. Most of the students all have open discussion and are able to communicate freely with the teachers(I'm in no way saying that this course is mandatory in the program, so far it's a one time elective thing) allowing us to openly ask questions about how to write signs in person. But, as far as access online to this, I am pretty sure there is no way to do that. Moving on to how it would be applicable to everyday use for deaf individuals, honestly, I don't know. I can't speak for how it could be used, or how it could be applicable for an everyday use. I think if only to preserve some signs where videos could get lost, or allow ASL to be physically written and displayed in classrooms or public places like any other language that has a written system to not only illustrate the signs/beauty of the language but to give some representation. Moving on to the next topic, which is how videos are writing for ASL and how watching the videos is very much like reading. That is very interesting, I never thought of it like that. But, again, where videos might fall flat for this would be displaying a story, in the words of my si5s/ASL teacher, "you can have a story in ASL, and record it...but how do you display that in the classroom, or publicly. You can have a constant looping of the story on a t.v. or monitor, but that would be distracting ." I agree, it would be not only distracting and lengthy, in situations like this. But, I also see your point where the exchange of videos is akin to reading and writing ......anyways, thanks a million for your response to my question and your point was very clear. Can't wait for the next video!
Thank you for the coffee! I appreciate it! I'm glad to know that si5s has evolved to the handshapes themselves. That's true, you have a group of people who you can talk with. However, if someone wants to learn how to do this, they have to either be lucky enough to near that college or have a friend who wants to learn/practice too. That's why I like that ASLWrite has a Facebook group. It would be useful in classrooms and the public, that's a good point. Not having to show a video and pause/go back to see what you missed, or wait until it loops back around, etc.
Rogan Shannon Yes!! I agree, maybe forming an online group to allow access to more information and discussion would be a good solution. It's all about access/discussion and flexibility, it's the most important thing in any community.
Barnabus Hello! I really appreciate seeing this conversation happen. Some minor clarifications -- ASLwrite was named by the community -- the original ASLwrite website was a dictionary. It evolved into a community. From the start we've always had digits matching the handshapes although they have evolved a bit to be visually stronger. I feel that this unique aspect reduces visual processing time during reading and writing. At the ASLwrite website the first page should explain a little about the principles behind digit design. Its so important for a community of writers to work on this, to know more than one way of writing ASL so as to have a better instinct for the future. Really, the foundations are there, waiting for the entire ASL community to take flight with it. :)
Adrean Clark Thanks for replying. I agree completely! It is necessary for any aspect of the language to be developed as a community. I do hope any written form of ASL can be successful and be accepted by the community. I think it would be a cool addition to the language and a good resource.
I'm a hearing person who is interested in language and am wanting to learn ASL as my second language C: I think having a written language will make preserving the nuances and culture of ASL, and will also make it easier to learn (which will make it more accessible and also more respected as a language (it should be regardless).) Theres a lot of ways to pull it off in digital text mediums, as others here have said and you could even go as far as digital translators, which is another route to learning the language and a way for others to communicate through it even if they don't know it. Further, theres context that just gets lost when translating to english from ASL? An example is wordplay and rhyming in ASL, for example "red" and "eggplant" rhyme in ASL, because the signs for them are similar, but in english they don't- vocally or in writing. This next part is more of a personal thing, and part of ig my own motivations with why there should be a written form of ASL, but it involves accessibility. Im autistic and part of what that means for me is that immersion certainly helps, but i struggle to learn exclusively through immersion in regards to a number of things, including language. And i didn't really have a full understanding of language (english) until my preteen years, and when i learned to read at age ten that majorly helped me with understanding language because i could recognize the patterns and context in a number of mediums, in large amounts. I'm going to look into the two written forms of ASL you mentioned, it will help me learn C:
Even with videos, there should be some way to transcribe the language in the video to a written form, just as audio recordings can be transcribed. The two modes (performed vs. written) are distinct.
+Rogan Shannon (and others), I'm not a member of the Deaf community myself, but languages and writing systems have long interested me. Around 2009, I tried creating a writing system for ASL as a fun project. I'd seen systems like ASLwrite and Stokoe notation, but they weren't easily used with technologies around then since they required non-ASCII glyphs and nonlinear visual components. Technologies even then did support vast swathes of non-ASCII Unicode characters; and current software is especially flexible. All the same, it seems to me that ASL users would, even today, be best served if they had access to a writing system that exclusively used ASCII text; and then they could record in script any ASL utterance of their choosing on their phones, in Windows notepad (and other basic text editors), in HTML, etc. without special programs or other assistance technologies. The questions left to be determined then are whether such an ASCII ASL writing system is even possible and whether it would be easy to read, write, and learn. I'm not certain about the answer to the latter question. Maybe it could be. However, I'm fairly convinced that the answer to the former question is yes (with perhaps one caveat). I can't remember many of the details of my project after so many years, but the basic premise of my idea was to represent the various hand-specific phonemic categories of ASL (hand shape, location, "internal" action and/or "verbal aspect") all with the same letters. How can, e.g., the letter 'a' represent both a hand shape (obviously the "A" fist) and a location (maybe directly in front of the sternum) and some kind of action (I don't know; maybe a lateral twisting movement)? By the position of the letter within the written ASL word. Unlike an English word, wherein each letter has been basically been assigned exactly one meaning and the letters are interpreted sequentially, an ASL word would comprise multiple slots. For the simpler ASL words, three slots might be sufficient: shape + location + movement. For other words, more slots could be used -- for example, initial shape + initial location + initial action + final shape + final location + final action. This might seem odd at first blush. For the most part, writing systems for spoken languages don't use slots to differentiate between important parts of a spoken word. But "slot" notation isn't without precedent -- namely, numbers. In previous eras, different symbols represented different numbers. For the ancient Romans, for example, used V to denote 10 and C to denote 100. The ancient Greeks used kappa to denote 20 and lambda to denote 30. We moderns, however, don't (normally) use letters to represent all the various possible numbers. Instead, we use ten symbols, just ten; and we represent all the other numbers by moving these ten symbols from right to left. Essentially then, our number system has slots: ... + thousand + hundred + ten + one. A writing scheme for a sign language could likewise slots (as perhaps described above): shape + location + action. I thought this was a neat idea when I was working on the project. There remain still a few difficulties, however. One of these difficulties is the large number of possible phonemes in ASL. Again, I can't remember the details, but I think each hand-related phonemic category has more than 26 possibilities. So ASL would need more than 26 letters (or use diacritics -- which I wanted to avoid). Or ASL would have to use a clever encoding to overcome this obstacle. Variable-length codes like the Huffman coding might inspire an adequate solution to this problem. Another problem stems from ASL's wild-wild-west nature. In part because ASL has never had a writing system, speakers of ASL have not standardized their language to an extent necessary to facilitate the creation of an ASCII-only writing system. (Even if the ASL community were to find an ASCII-only script off-putting, speakers would nonetheless still benefit, I believe, from efforts to codify the language's phoneme inventories and the "aspectual" distinctions of its verbs. But that may only be my own opinion.) One further problem may be the most intractable. While working on my project, I had little idea how to represent and manage all the NON-manual features of the language, of which there are many, many. The cheeks, lips, eyebrows, eye gaze, head movements all contribute to the meaning of a sentence. Since I'm in no way a native speaker, I couldn't recognize the significance of any of these characteristics. However, although I struggled with this dimension of signed languages, maybe others could devise clever solutions. I'd be very excited if anyone replies with their own ideas to manage non-manual cues.
I made such a segmented ASCII system called ASLSJ. It has some documentation at www.aslsj.com. Send me an email positivesigner at gmail.com and we can discuss some examples.
I am not deaf nor hard of hearing but I am learning asl in case of need. I am 13 years old and trying to figure out the alphabet in asl writing system. Do you have any ideas to where I can find the alphabet to learn it?
My main gripe on ASL Write system is a lack of official ASL dictionary in written ASL forms on every known signed words into the book where we are left feeling uncertain on how to write a proper ASL grammar. I do not mean the basic introduction and the gist of written words with workshop found on the book and leave to yourself on how to write and not everybody will understand that written ASL on paper. We are left to fend for ourselves. It is time consuming endeavour without a ASL-written dictionary to guide us along the way. Without the dictionary where we have ASL Write on the dictionary for every written signed words on the book, this will not succeed. For example, we have English dictionary for every spoken words is written into the book and its word meanings while we lack ASL dictionary. If I need to write a word to describe something, I look up on the dictionary to check with spelling or the meaning of the word. Also the dictionary has a pronounces on how to speak a word, ASL dictionary doesn't. It needs to have a spelled signed word and the signed word and the meaning in signing form for this structure on the written ASL language to develop properly. I do not mean the existing ASL dictionary book with picture without any of ASL Write form or video dictionary with English displayed on the video and it's similar to English-French translation book.. Also, there is a lack of signed words for complicated English words that would differ that only scholars can understand with some variant where there is one signed word can be interpreter in different English words and conflict with thoughts and ability to understand one other suffers in communication form to the point of forcing myself to spell that certain words on non-existed signs from a English word and causing the signing form to go out of wack if I spell a word wrong in signed spelling form to make ourselves look bad to the point where I have to think of a right word to express if they do not know the word I'm speaking of. There are some signed words that do not even exist in English language which is why we need dictionary to explain the meaning of the signed word itself and if I am a hearing and I am learning ASL and I get stumbled into a signed word that do not exist in English struggle to understand the meaning of unique signed word. If we have the structure found on the dictionary in the future, we will then be able to develop the new signs for every new variants to differ from other signs because English words does have variant words and it's been developed for centuries.. Any new words added to the English dictionary did not exist few centuries ago and made it stick to the dictionary.
Hi Rogan, I love watching your videos I myself can hear but I have deaf friends and my brother is mute, so sign language is my second language. I've wondered (not sure if you've answered this question before) I know some deaf people speak while signing, have you ever been vocal? Just curious! :)
I haven't answered that before! It really depends a lot on my mood, and who I'm talking with. But I'd say maybe 95% of the time, I'm voice-off. Partly because I have a low and slightly loud voice, I suck with volume control, and how clearly someone understands me is very subjective. Some people can understand me pretty clearly, some can't, and even the same people who can understand me on some days can't on other days. So it's easier to not bother :P
Sorry for my long reply but i liked your opinions. Very interesting debate. :) For me, sign language is an oral language with hands, you speak express yourself with your body and create nuance with fast or slow movement with your hand. Spoken language are the same, except the body part is mostly conveyed by sound pitch. So signs have no current writing system. Video aren't a sign writing system. Otherwise you could say radio is a writing system. And yes, video are the perfect medium for sign language because they are in 3D and writing them on a 2D paper is quite challenging mission and you lose lot of informations. However, the same thing happen in spoken language. You don't know if the person is happy, angry, sad, nor pronounce those word but we found several way to share those informations, that how we came up with : -phonetic system -punctuation system -smiley system ... So, how do you express yourself in a letter ? Let's remove all technologies ! -You can write in your "native" language. But i often saw my deaf friends struggling with grammar and spelling. It's due to a lack of adapted education and their own language -Create a new writting system adapted to sign ? I hardly see it's potential in daily use, i am afraid it won't be very fast. But i think we don't need to draw face or hand, Chinese could be a great writing system for sign. It's visual and not based on sound. That's why, i think the current writing sign is awesome for archival purpose or converting text. The problem is that video need lot of resource and there are country where internet connection is so slow that you can't watch video. Imagine a text with words i don't understand, i choose one. And the computer will check the whole sentence for key word and with scripts instead of having the word "rain" it will show you "pouring rain" or something like that. Something like that.
I'm a (hearing) linguist and I've recently become interested in sign language. Creating a good writing system for sign language is something right up my alley... but I'll need to learn more about sign and how it works in order to make anything useful and practical. If/ when I do create such a system, I think it'd be cool to start a blog in the writing system. Even if no one would be talking to me in it, just having a large body of written sign out there would be a useful learning resource for everyone, and could more quickly prompt a standardization. As others have pointed out, implementing written sign would simply be a matter of adding the system to Unicode; then it could be used straightforwardly in places like Facebook. There are already a few well-developed writing systems, but as far as I'm aware, they're mostly relegated to academia; none have been widely adopted by language users themselves.
I would suggest you check out the Facebook group, ASLwrite. It’s a fairly well developed writing system and was done by deaf people. It just hasn’t become widespread because learning it isn’t that easy, and there’s no formal classes to learn it.
Hello, thank you for the video. I don't read all comments. I am wondering anyone mention about facial expression in ASL writing? IT is THE big challenge in ASL writing, almost impossible to do it. I too like filming ASL better than writing ASL.
Good question! No one did, and yes you can somewhat add facial expression in sign writing. It's not perfect, but then again, facial expressions are extremely varied.
It seems to me that the history of writing is often romanticized. The four places in history that developed writing systems were due to having actual needs - agriculture for growing communities required more brain power than individuals could muster. They needed to offload their past learning into written documents. This way new people can learn what to do without bugging the few people already know, effectively creating government ordinances. Seeing the power of communicating across distances, some people borrowed the government's writing system and tailored it for their own purposes. The most effective motivator for learning to read and write has always been a government requiring someone to understand a writing system under punishment of losing money. I believe writing to be useful as an alternate rendering of ideas. Yes, ASL videos capture your meaning accurately for someone who knows ASL. It has a lot of nuance that culturally literate people may notice. But the closed captions are there to eliminate the nuances. You use standard spelling and proper grammar so others can look up your meaning even if they are not culturally literate English speakers. If you had published your captions in a blog post, people can actually read four times faster than your speech / signing. I could skim the paragraphs of the blog post, quickly looking for something that is relevant to me. It can be indexed by Google, or I can just use the Find feature in my browser for particular words. It can be automatically (though poorly) translated into hundreds of other languages. I can print it out and highlight parts of it for review later. Dictionary writers, encyclopedias, magazines, books, newspapers, etc. can use your blog post as source material. ASLWrite or Si5s could realize these kind benefits. My personal take is that an alphabet is better than picture writing because it doubles as an index. I created the ASLSJ writing system because I wanted to use ASL words in my computer programs. It only uses the alphabet's letters, so I could upload the closed captions for your video in ASLSJ today. Your video starts with the ASL word "hello." In English, each letter of a word phonetically tells you how to move your lips, tongue, and throat to pronounce the word. In ASLSJ, the word "bepo-r" phonetically tells you to put your open-B handshape (the first two letters - be) in front of your chin (the next letter - p) with the palm turned out (next letter - o) then move the hand to the right (-r). "bepo-r" is an ASL idea. It does not require translation into English and it does not require an artist's painting like ASLWrite or Si5s. Now I can create a dictionary to hold that word and thousands more. Unfortunately it wouldn't help because nobody would want to read it - so we're back to square one.
First, thank you for your long comment and the mini history lesson! I enjoyed reading it. I have actually considered starting to do a transcript of sorts to go with my videos, edited slightly to read better. I do have a website that I post on whenever I release a new video, and occasionally other things. I could just take the captions and turn them into a transcript, put them underneath the video. OR I could instead make it a blog post and link to the video. Hmm. Establishing a written system that everyone could easily learn, and use every day, is tough! Especially when so many people say we don't need it, we already have English.
There is BSL couple who worked to get their baby's BSL sign name registered on the baby's birth cirtificate. UbOtDDstarL (looks like the ASL word for "pill") is the first of her three middle names: Hazel UbOtDDstarL Holly Eileen Garfield-Lichy. I have a blog post that I've been updating as I find people who have reasons to want written Sign Language. I'm afraid the list isn't as big as I would hope, considering it goes back 100 years. Please let me know if I've missed anything. aslsj.blogspot.com/2011/08/desire-for-asl-writing.html
I saw that story! That'd be cool to do, though now there's a trend (one that I am more supportive of) where people wait until their children are two or three years old to give a sign name. That way, they can give something based on personality or behaviors. Thanks for the blog post, I'll check it out!
I'ce been hearing my whole life, but I've had a bit of a mild interest in sign language. I feel like written sign would be more helpful if there was actually one universal/auxilary/international sign language that could unite a global deaf community rather than people filtered by the hearing languages of where they live, and then further filtered by the individual sign languages in each place. I do think there is use to having a written form of sign. Hearing people write things instead of just having recordings of everything because it takes less resources (including more modern ones, like storage and bandwith), and with something written out, it is (in my opinion, theoretically) easier to skim back over if you need to refresh or find specific information. I could also see utility if you're in a deaf community wanting to write things (even quick notes) and not wanting to have to switch to the written form of the local hearing language. Spelling and fingerspelling seem to be a strong part of sign languages anyway though, so I'm not sure how much benefit written sign has over just writing in "normal" writing. (Finger)spelling is potentially an issue that makes developing a universal sign language difficult, but I think looking to, like, Chinese and maybe other logographic language systems could be potentially helpful.
This is just my personal opinion but as a deaf person with cochlear implant, I find signing videos to be more helpful since you can see facial expressions, body language, and how to properly sign certain words. It's also far more engaging than a written form would have with the viewers. However, having a written form of ASL would be extremely helpful, especially in the medical fields. My biggest fear is a doctor or any medical practitioner sending their patients home with a written form and them not understanding the instructions of self care and do not want to ask their practitioner because of communication difficulties. That causes them more harm than help, so I definitely support written ASL if they can be used in the medical fields and consumer related fields to create equality among the consumers.
That's why I would prefer videos, then I know I'm getting it exactly right, and I feel more connection with whoever it is! That's true, I didn't think about it in a medical perspective. Good thinking!
I am hearing but I find it a complicated topic. I mean of course it'd be great to have it in general but like you already said - where is the everyday benefit from it? You could write with deaf people or people who know the language but with those you can also send small videos since I assume they know SL too when they can read and write it. As in the everyday life by comunication with others like employees at a shop or whatever they would need to know the written form unless it doesn't give you any benefit. At least in my eyes!
in my ASL classes we use capitalized english words with asl grammar, no punctuation, and no prefixes or suffixes. What’s your name? = YOU NAME WHAT I went to the store and bought milk last week = LAST WEEK ME GO STORE BUY MILK
Speaking from a hearing perspective, I think a form of written ASL could be very useful. I think you could keep a better record of ASL and how it's evolving. You could describe and teach people new signs easier and quicker (if you knew the system, you would automatically know how to sign something correctly by seeing it in its written form unlike pictures in current ASL textbooks and dictionaries..... unless it ends up like English and the signs start to not match up with the writing, but I think there's a long way to go before we get to that point). And I just generally think it's great to be able to write something in your native language. We don't always have time to make a video. However, despite this, I don't know that it'd catch on for the reasons that you stated in the video.
I have a question unrelated but thought I’d ask..... when songs are being interpreted in church and the words are up on a screen is it better to sign word for word or in concepts or ask? Does that make sense? Like sometimes a solo is being sung but the words are displayed in a screen so what is better? Or hymns congregationally? I guess an example would be like in the song where it uses the phrase grapes of wrath are stored
Ask! The church I grew up in has words on the screen, but I still prefer the interpreter to sign more closely to the words. I might sign more ASL myself, but I like the terp doing it that way because then they’re not trying too hard to translate the concepts correctly when I already understand them. But someone else might prefer concept translation because they struggle with English and all of its oddities. So asking is always the best route.
Thank you so much Rogan, I really appreciate your response and input! I will ask. I just noticed last Sunday that there seemed to be some differences in the way the interpreter signed and the way that our deaf visitor would start to sign and it seemed a little confusing to me! I’m just learning so I don’t want to be intrusive or rude at all! Thanks
I just want Facebook to make it less cumbersome to communicate with videos! The best way I know how right now is to record the video on my computer or phone, and then upload it. Sometimes, they take quite awhile to load, and they often don't want to post from my phone. I wish Facebook had some sort of internal video system or something! Most of the exposure I get to ASL (expressive and receptive) is online, and I want it to be easy to communicate with my Deaf friends through video!
ASL is definitely a language and schools not recognizing that are puting more importance on foreigners outside of this country and foreigners who don’t know English inside this country and not seeing deaf people as equals. That’s how I see it. I think it would be helpful to have some written rules or language to help us learn ASL. However, the whole reason sign language was developed was for inclusion-to bring attention to the fact that deaf people are people too and are not stupid or dumb. Developing sign language was also to bring deaf people more into the fold than they were way back when. It was for unity sake and education as well as all the other reasons language is important. I do personally thing that pigeon should not be put down but embraced a whole lot more than it is in order to create unity in this country with hearing and deaf/hh. It seems as time goes on the divide only widens and one up a ship is at the helm. I’m not against ASL for community sake, but I do wish the goal was more comming togetherness than it is.
I am a hearing person, and I'm only just starting to learn my country's sign language, but here are my two cents. As a sign language student, ASLwrite has been very useful in jotting down new signs I find without having to write down a whole description or, even worse, attempt to draw them; also when preparing presentations for class, an ASLwrite script is much better than a simple gloss.
I also think it could have a use in literature; yes, some of the information would be lost from the performer to the written page, but that's also true of written versions of spoken languages (and people still read poetry). Written sign language literature would allow for people who maybe need a little more time understanding things to read at their own pace, go back to re-read passages they didn't fully comprehend, or even skip ahead when necessary. It would also help students take notes in class without having to translate into / think in english first.
Using for notes does make sense!
Very good point, someone else mentioned something similar about being able to go back, or go at their own pace and not have stop/rewind the video.
I used SignWriting to make some flashcards for myself awhile back. It really is useful for L2 ASL learners to have a writing system!
As for technological limitations.... Unicode has hundreds if not thousands of glyphs for every Chinese/Japanese/Vietnamese character in existence, as well as nearly all possible Korean Hangul combinations, so there you go.
I am a strong advocate for writing in all types of languages, be they oral, signed, or even iconographic.
There is plenty of good reason for having a static representation of a something dynamic. By "dynamic", I mean moving, changing, sounding out, vibrating... etc. How do I explain this?
Your video is eight minutes and 27 seconds. That means it took that amount of time for your audience to receive all the information that you wanted to express. On the other hand, you have a parallel blog post of this video, written in English. If I were to dictate it in its entirety, one word at a time, I would probably arrive at a similar time frame by the time I got to the end, maybe even faster. But since it is in writing, I am able to receive and process that information in three minutes or less.
That's the magic of speed-reading, and it can only be made possible by divorcing the information from its dynamic element (i.e. speech) and capturing it in a static depiction. That way, readers can receive the same amount of information at their own pace.
Likewise, with signed languages, you can take a video lasting several minutes long, transcribe it in a few sentences, and a fluent signer who is literate in their language's writing system of choice can read it in probably less than a minute.
That is the inherent advantage of a written medium - it doesn't need to occupy time.
The most important (to me) aspect of having a widespread writing system is that it could really help "standardize" ASL. Dictionaries would be MUCH faster, easier, and cheaper to make, as well as being way more accessible. Another thing I really like about writing is that it is timeless. The image of a writing communicates information that otherwise needs to be replayed *over time* as a video. And lastly, I really want a writing system because it can be used to make still visual arts. I can't imagine I'm the only one that would like a cool t-shirt with stylized but readable ASL on it; it's just so cool!
I think there's a lot of benefits to written sign that you didn't touch on. One, videos are not a good substitute for the written word. Videos are high bandwidth, and preserving video is much harder than writing. Imagine trying to preserve an entire ASL interpretation of say the book Moby Dick for example, probably all filmed at like 25GB, and then having a book version at only a few MB. Videos can't be printed and don't survive hard drive breakdowns. Many cloud services are happy with small text files but not huge videos. But there's another benefit...searching. You can't search a video. Take the Moby Dick example, you have to watch the whole thing to find a certain part, then write the timecode of that part. You can't even refer to the same part of the book in a different interpretation.
Like right now even, you can't search in ASL. You have to search in English and then put "ASL" after it. This makes ASL a second class citizen instead of the first class language that it is.
Me, personally, I think SignWriting is the future...these other systems (si5s) seem lame in comparison. There's already an ASL Wikipedia using SignWriting for example.
SignWriting is more established, but it was definitely not designed with actual pen-to-paper writing in mind. si5s/ASLWrite were.
So? The world hasn't been designed with pen-to-paper writing in mind since the 90's, perhaps early 00's. SignWriting can be written, but since few people do that regularly anymore, it hardly matters. ;)
SignWriting is written by hand all of the time. The style you see online is called SignWriting Block Printing. This style is used for publishing. The style written by hand is called SignWriting Cursive. This style is used with pen and paper. www.signpuddle.net/wiki/index.php/SignWriting_Script/
In Mexico, my mom studied to be a recording secretary, meaning she would sit in during meetings and write down everything people said. Now, obviously she can't write everything she hears at the same speed they're speaking if she writes letter by letter so they taught her a special way of writing using lines, curves, and dots. Even then, they had to find a way to shorten it to keep up so she had to get rid of some words and rearrange the grammar so that she could still read it later when she transferred it into a document to keep in the official records. Something like that would be very helpful in situations like lectures, meetings, quick note writing, or other instances in which videos would take up too much space/ memory or even when people don't have access to a recording device! I do think a written version of signing would be very helpful!
There's a lot of really good comments here already, but I really enjoy the idea of a symbol representing a handshape with a motion attached. Had sign grown off a template like that, I imagine there would be "base" handshapes, similar to the way english words can be torn apart into latin roots.
I also kinda like the idea of the language essentially having a written instruction sheet. In the same way origami instructions present valley or mountain folds with symbols, you could have a text book teaching ASL with letters instead of a series of pictures. Lifespeak has the instructions for dinosaur:
-The sign for dinosaur uses a flattened "O" handshape to show a dinosaur walking past. The arm bounces up and down a bit (as if taking steps) as it travels in front of you.
You could show that in 1 symbol, and essentially compress that whole definition to an O with a squiggly line. That would be FANTASTIC in a printed sign language dictionary, and especially great for classwork and textbooks.
That was all very interesting. As a "Hearing" person, I would have never thought about that. I believe that ANY way that two people or more can communicate, is a GOOD way. : ) Keep communicating with us here in the UA-cam world! I enjoy hearing your comments about various topics.
I'm just starting to learn sign languages as a hearing person (ASL and JSL), and I really like the idea of being able to write down signs. It's up to the community whether they adopt it for communication and literature, but even if no one else uses it I can still see it being useful simply for recording things for myself. As for being able to write a Facebook post in ASL, I think that day might not be too far off if someone puts in the necessary work. Essentially the challenge is in writing a proposal to the Unicode Consortium, but I'm fairly sure ASLwrite is starting to meet the criteria for inclusion.
having a written form of ASL would be so cool it may not be necessary in this day and age, but the idea of Deaf culture literally not having to know English sounds interesting. Si5s seems promising thank you for introducing this idea I'm definitely going to check this out!
William Burns I am so curious, is it actually feasible that with a written form, knowing English would become entirely unnecessary? I find this confusing - there are still a tremendous number of words that are fingerspelled, it seems. And wouldn't many of the signs still be based on English letters? Very curious about opinions on this. Thanks!
That's a good question. I think English would still be required for us to know, since we live in a country (the US) where English is the primary language of use. And yes, in ASL, there are A LOT of fingerspelled words.
However, ASL signers are trying very hard to move away from that, and words that use English letters. There are some signs that are technically spelled but have become a sign of its own, they're called lexicalized fingerspelling/signs. I'm planning to make a video on that eventually!
Another thing, it does seem like ASL is based on English, but that's only because of how most people learn ASL (and language really). If you were born and raised with ASL, then learned English later, you might think English is based on ASL!
Rogan Shannon Good points!! Thank you for the insight!! :D
Yeah i guess I did say "literally" but that's a gross exaggeration,
Rogan!!! Thank you for being brave to discuss written ASL! :) Of course we disagree a bit on video being writing -- the playback time supports expression more than it does reception. Its so important for us to have an ability to visually process information on our own timing. Videos force us to follow the pace of speakers and don't have a way to easily jump into sections. Plus what happens when the power's out? It's good to have a way to write things down quickly. Others have said similar things -- did they change your mind yet? Also, have you asked the ASLwrite community your great question of incorporating writing in daily life yet ? -- its in my daily life but I'm fluent so I passed the "hill of difficulty" to get to this point. Keep on thinking and asking questions!!
That's true, it does support expression more than reception. Good point about the power. :P
I never said I was against sign writing! I even said I am for it, it's just the "hill of difficulty" as you say, and actually committing to learning how to write in it :)
Rogan Shannon I didn't think that you are against it - just more of why, when have this? I think people are so used to written English that they feel vulnerable when writing ASL. The "hill of difficulty" is very uncomfortable and not everyone is able to "sit" with that discomfort -- to work through it to the other side.
Fair enough. I don't have a problem with that discomfort, I have learned multiple other languages (both written and signed)! I agree that writing ASL is a very different process than any other written language. I just need to throw myself into learning, and go from there :)
Reading and writing are so much more than putting one sign after the other. Both of these activities do not need to be thought of as linear. My two favorite books on the topic are "How to read a book" and "Writing the natural way".
For reading, imagine you have a 400 page book and only 5 minutes to spend to determine if the book is worth more of you time. You could read the back of the book, the table of contents, the glossary, and then maybe skim through the book, reading an interesting paragraph here or there. With only 5 minutes, you can get a really nice overview of a book including the authors main ideas and the general structure. Now imagine trying to do this with a 20 hour video series.
For writing, a great technique is called clustering (or mind mapping), where you put the main idea in the center of a page and then cluster around the idea. It's like a tree diagram in 2-dimensional space. As you expand the tree, you'll usually get a sudden insight into your topic of how everything relates together and about what you want to write. This is the time to stop the 2D clustering and to then start the actual written piece. This 2 part writing process splits the creative process and produces writing that is much more organized, original, and interesting than a simple written piece where you just start writing.
And of course editing is an entirely different process with its own skills and objectives. If you need to change the fifth sign of the second paragraph, how do you do that with video? Editing becomes even more complicated when you consider group editing, such as available on the ASL Wikipedia. When multiple people are editing a page, how to you combine and merge all of their writing? Since the ASL Wikipedia uses text, you can simply update a sign by rewriting it. If you want to replace fingerspelling with a real sign, again you just simply edit the text.
For reading, writing, and editing, video is a poor substitute for text. The same is true for voice recordings. I can't imagine writing a 500 word essay if I was only able to use a voice recorder.
+Steven Yes, I agree! Very good points!
*Is learning ASL and gets better talking with deaf co-workers*
*See's si5s and becomes intimidated* lol
All joking aside, it makes sense. I would be nice for making notes. Also, having a unique writing form would be cool.
What do you think of the Stokoe notation system? As a non-native signer, I like it, mostly because it gives me access to dictionaries and it uses mostly symbols that are anyone's keyboard. I know that SignWriting is in Unicode, but I can't find any way to type it, which is frustrating when it theoretically possible.
The Stokoe Notation system is great for taking notes, basic writing, etc. but it's not 100% effective for all ASL signs. That's why it's called a notation system - not a writing system. SignWriting is in Unicode, yes, though I have no idea how to use it. I don't like how it looks however. It's not very fluid, and a bit jarring to me. Feels a bit like looking at someone signing in 8-bit :P
Great video. I'm a hearing person, and I really like the idea of written signs too. One thing I like about written text is that you can quickly scan it to find something, or even use a "find in page" feature if it's on a computer. In short, I think there are a lot of benefits to having both videos and written texts.
If videos had easily searchable transcripts (and timestamps?), maybe that could work really well. I'm thinking that they wouldn't necessarily have to be translated into English sentences, but could have English words (or French, Japanese, etc), punctuation, and sign language syntax. But I'm not sure how well this would go in practice.
That is definitely a big benefit of having written things rather than video.
This is why I now create blog posts that are kind of the equivalent of transcripts for my videos, so people can search them quickly or read if they prefer.
As a hearing person learning ASL I often wish there was a more efficient way of writing ASL when I'm working on something for class. Honestly though, it's just for my convenience.
Hearing but ASL teacher and former Deaf Ed teacher here. I think having a writing system would help legitimize ASL as a language for the institutions that are lagging behind, like schools for offering it as a world language and places still not understanding the necessity for interpreters. I believe I have read that Gallaudet accepts si5s as it's preferred method of sign writing.
I am not a fluent written in either si5s nor SignWrite but when I explored them, I thought SignWrite would be easier to read and harder to write. I also thought it looked like drawing signs in many ways and I didn't want that. Si5s looks more like the next generation of a writing system where it has naturally developed into a set of symbols. I also think it might be easier for the general public to accept symbols representative of visuals because their/our English language has symbols representative of sound. More drawn-like symbols may not be taken seriously for longer. Just some of my thoughts
Interesting perspective! I'm curious, when you say SignWrite, are you talking about the system created by Sutton? Or ASLWrite, which was created by Adrean Clark? They're completely different things, ASLWrite is more similar to si5s.
@@RoganShannon13 I was talking about the system referenced in the video that was not si5s. I apologise if I got the name wrong. Is it 'Sign Writing'? I am recently familiar with ASLwrite as a system (still not able to use it) and as far as I could tell ASLwrite is si5s but free/public and the only major differences are ones that have happen since the split in creators. Again I have not done a deep dive into the ASLwrite system nor the si5s system so I don't know if there are any differences.
What I'm referencing in the video is just ASLWrite or si5s. The symbols I show on screen are from si5s. Yes, ASLWrite and si5s are very similar and the differences are from when the creators of si5s split. From what little I know of each, ASLWrite has evolved more than si5s, based on community use. But I'm really not the right person to ask about this haha
@@RoganShannon13 same. I am aware of them but not able to use them. I thought there was mention of Sign Writing as a system in the video but regardless, it is one of the other systems of writing signs. It is the one by Sutton you mentioned earlier. Knowing what that system looks like, helps make my original comment make sense. It's quite different than ASLwrite and si5s and I still prefer the symbolification of ASLwrite/si5s to Sign Writing.
I thought about this question for years. This TV show, "Revolution," it is about the world without electricity which means no access to any kind of technology. What will be next as our back up to preserve sign language? This is my most fear about no electricity access, I usually watch these videos to feel "interact" for a little bit. It is hard to imagine living without videos, I mean- videos are the best and mandatory for lives! :-D
That's a good point! Someone else said something similar, with writing it's more permanent than video because videos require something to store them and view them.
For actual everyday communication like social media posting, written ASL is not really practical especially since with smartphones uploading videos and images is so well integrated into so many platforms. But I think that it is something that has value beyond "coolness" (I say this as a linguist who squees every time she sees a new script). For formal or academic contexts it's important to be able represent information in a precise format. To me that means it must be both unambiguous, and concise. Music has its own notation, chemistry has its own system, and so on. It's something that would be great for talking *about* ASL (like how you compare different signs being used for new words) rather than just talking in ASL (everyday business and conversation).
I agree that we aren't there yet, but back before non-english scripts were supported on phones, Arabic speakers figured out a way to add in missing sounds by using "7" "5" and "3". People in all sorts of communities are coming up with on the fly solutions to limitations in our current online communication systems. So it might work itself out sooner than expected.
As for your concern about written ASL being in its infancy, and being unsure about what's the "correct" way to write something, do recall that throughout its longe Historie of Development, Peuple were very liberal with thaire Spelling, and there was nary one proper Waye to wryte a Pasage. Were ye to rede the original Workes of Shakespeare, ye wold cringe at the inconsistant and abyssimal Ways in which Fowlk wrote ye olde Playes that we would consider ye classic Artes todaye. English would not have a prescriptive orthography until centuries later.
So just do what your antecedents did, and write in a way that's comfortable and understandable to you. As the ASL writing community develops, so will orthographic conventions and "proper" writing.
i love this
Really interesting. Thank you for sharing x
Such a good topic to discuss. I agree with your practical issues with a written system for ASL in that, is it really helping communicate in the everyday? BUT as a speech pathology student with linguistic/Deaf Studies minors headed to Gallaudet for grad school, I would love to see a more unified, strong written form that can capture all the parameters of ASL. SLPs are constantly getting language samples and breaking them down into parts for evaluations, and I think having a way to jot down signs produced by clients would be helpful in the clinical setting AND for research purposes. Thanks for your insights, and would love to see a video on some basic written ASL!
I definitely think that signwrite could be very useful in an academic context, especially in linguistics and Deaf Studies.
I doubt I will ever make a video on this, unless I really improve my writing skills. I am at a VERY basic level, and I would defer to others who actually use this on a daily basis.
That was a very interesting topic. I enjoyed "reading" the video? 👍 I am trying to watch your videos with CC on and the going back and watching again and trying to keep up with the speed in which you sign. I have trouble reading the CC and watching you at the same time. so I find the words on the screen have no context without you behind them .
Thanks for watching! That's interesting that you need to see me with the captions, and the captions don't work on their own!
Rogan Shannon Ive never been good with subtitles and I can't seem to divide my attention between reading words and you. I want to watch you, to learn from your ASL and to enjoy your videos. so cc first and then you :)
I've been thinking of a writing system with the Roman alphabet, numbers, and English punctuation to avoid the problem with technology you talked about. I can't imagine ASLWrite or si5s really becoming popular because of the problem. It would include abbreviations for the 5 parameters of sign, using Roman characters, and combine them to create each sign. It seems pretty easy to learn and use to me, but I bet there are are problems.
1. Placement: s=shoulder, t=torso, n=nose, f=front
2. Handshape: capital letter or number for hand shape
3. Orientation: maybe punctuation marks like ^ = up, < = left, > = right, -- = forward,
4. Movement: abbreviations for movement: crx=crossing, trst=thrusting, smrot= small rotating, lgrot = large rotating, pl=pulling
5. Expression: more punctuations, maybe? /\ = eyebrows up, \/ = eyebrows down, ( ) = puffy cheeks
f5^smrot\/ = front location, 5 hand shape, small rotating, eyebrows down = where
f1- = front location, 1 hand shape, forward orientation, no movement, no expression = you
t10-pl = torso, 10 hand shape, pulling movement, no expression = live
f5^smrot\/ f1- t10-pl = WHERE YOU LIVE
Critique?
Hmm, that's a possibility. I know some other people have thought about this, and created some system. However, I feel like it would take a lot of thinking to "set up" the sign, while with ASLWrite/si5s, it's a bit more intuitive.
Oh, I'll have to look into them. (pshhhhh...thought I was being original XP). I bet this would become pretty intuitive after some practice. After all, English letters don't visually represent the sounds they stand for, and you don't have to sound out each word to write (after first grade). Probably less intuitive than the others though.
P.S. Are video comments not a thing anymore? Or does each UA-camr en/disable them individually?
+Elliot Holland that is true, just like any other language. You have to use it to become good at it.
And I mentioned this in my #NotMyUA-cam video, sadly they're not a thing anymore. If they were, I'd definitely have them enabled.
I have been developing such an alphabetic writing system for ASL over the last ten years. When I am using my own system, the letters have become pretty intuitive. Every writing system has to trade-off being accurate with being quick to write. Chinese decided to keep the pictures, but children only know about 5,000 words by the time they enter high school. English prefers short words and so borrows words from over ten different languages, but an English dictionary can have over 500,000 words - ten times the size of most languages like French or German.
The main problem with all the ASL writing systems is having plenty of examples to imitate and people who would like to use them everyday. It takes a whole village to raise a child.
FYI: Here is a page where someone went through a lot of effort researching and comparing ten different ASL writing systems.
aslfont.github.io/Symbol-Font-For-ASL/ways-to-write.html
So, this reply might get lengthy...but here it goes. First of all, thank you so much for responding to my comment with a video, and taking the time to do so. I will be buying you some cups of "ko-fi." So, until watching this video I was only partially aware that ASLwrite and si5s were developed together and diverged later on to develop individually. To address the differences in si5s and ASLwrite and the use of handshapes in the two are very important in how the written system can progress. I do agree that si5s(in it's original form) can be daunting. However, what we are learning is si5s in a more developed form. Now it has since developed from that book to, very much like ASLwrite, to throw out the basic handshapes and how they change to include just the handshapes themselves. I'm assuming because the old way was to confusing or outdated or whatever. As far as a public community where they discuss the way you write the signs, like the Facebook group, I guess you could say the class and the ASL program at my college is like a public community. Most of the students all have open discussion and are able to communicate freely with the teachers(I'm in no way saying that this course is mandatory in the program, so far it's a one time elective thing) allowing us to openly ask questions about how to write signs in person. But, as far as access online to this, I am pretty sure there is no way to do that. Moving on to how it would be applicable to everyday use for deaf individuals, honestly, I don't know. I can't speak for how it could be used, or how it could be applicable for an everyday use. I think if only to preserve some signs where videos could get lost, or allow ASL to be physically written and displayed in classrooms or public places like any other language that has a written system to not only illustrate the signs/beauty of the language but to give some representation. Moving on to the next topic, which is how videos are writing for ASL and how watching the videos is very much like reading. That is very interesting, I never thought of it like that. But, again, where videos might fall flat for this would be displaying a story, in the words of my si5s/ASL teacher, "you can have a story in ASL, and record it...but how do you display that in the classroom, or publicly. You can have a constant looping of the story on a t.v. or monitor, but that would be distracting ." I agree, it would be not only distracting and lengthy, in situations like this. But, I also see your point where the exchange of videos is akin to reading and writing ......anyways, thanks a million for your response to my question and your point was very clear. Can't wait for the next video!
Thank you for the coffee! I appreciate it!
I'm glad to know that si5s has evolved to the handshapes themselves. That's true, you have a group of people who you can talk with. However, if someone wants to learn how to do this, they have to either be lucky enough to near that college or have a friend who wants to learn/practice too. That's why I like that ASLWrite has a Facebook group.
It would be useful in classrooms and the public, that's a good point. Not having to show a video and pause/go back to see what you missed, or wait until it loops back around, etc.
Rogan Shannon Yes!! I agree, maybe forming an online group to allow access to more information and discussion would be a good solution. It's all about access/discussion and flexibility, it's the most important thing in any community.
Barnabus Hello! I really appreciate seeing this conversation happen. Some minor clarifications -- ASLwrite was named by the community -- the original ASLwrite website was a dictionary. It evolved into a community. From the start we've always had digits matching the handshapes although they have evolved a bit to be visually stronger. I feel that this unique aspect reduces visual processing time during reading and writing. At the ASLwrite website the first page should explain a little about the principles behind digit design. Its so important for a community of writers to work on this, to know more than one way of writing ASL so as to have a better instinct for the future. Really, the foundations are there, waiting for the entire ASL community to take flight with it. :)
Barnabus Those are just my thoughts -- if you ask around in the ASLwrite FB group you'll get different perspectives, which is cool!
Adrean Clark Thanks for replying. I agree completely! It is necessary for any aspect of the language to be developed as a community. I do hope any written form of ASL can be successful and be accepted by the community. I think it would be a cool addition to the language and a good resource.
I'm a hearing person who is interested in language and am wanting to learn ASL as my second language C:
I think having a written language will make preserving the nuances and culture of ASL, and will also make it easier to learn (which will make it more accessible and also more respected as a language (it should be regardless).)
Theres a lot of ways to pull it off in digital text mediums, as others here have said and you could even go as far as digital translators, which is another route to learning the language and a way for others to communicate through it even if they don't know it.
Further, theres context that just gets lost when translating to english from ASL? An example is wordplay and rhyming in ASL, for example "red" and "eggplant" rhyme in ASL, because the signs for them are similar, but in english they don't- vocally or in writing.
This next part is more of a personal thing, and part of ig my own motivations with why there should be a written form of ASL, but it involves accessibility.
Im autistic and part of what that means for me is that immersion certainly helps, but i struggle to learn exclusively through immersion in regards to a number of things, including language. And i didn't really have a full understanding of language (english) until my preteen years, and when i learned to read at age ten that majorly helped me with understanding language because i could recognize the patterns and context in a number of mediums, in large amounts. I'm going to look into the two written forms of ASL you mentioned, it will help me learn C:
Even with videos, there should be some way to transcribe the language in the video to a written form, just as audio recordings can be transcribed. The two modes (performed vs. written) are distinct.
+Rogan Shannon (and others), I'm not a member of the Deaf community myself, but languages and writing systems have long interested me. Around 2009, I tried creating a writing system for ASL as a fun project. I'd seen systems like ASLwrite and Stokoe notation, but they weren't easily used with technologies around then since they required non-ASCII glyphs and nonlinear visual components. Technologies even then did support vast swathes of non-ASCII Unicode characters; and current software is especially flexible. All the same, it seems to me that ASL users would, even today, be best served if they had access to a writing system that exclusively used ASCII text; and then they could record in script any ASL utterance of their choosing on their phones, in Windows notepad (and other basic text editors), in HTML, etc. without special programs or other assistance technologies. The questions left to be determined then are whether such an ASCII ASL writing system is even possible and whether it would be easy to read, write, and learn. I'm not certain about the answer to the latter question. Maybe it could be. However, I'm fairly convinced that the answer to the former question is yes (with perhaps one caveat).
I can't remember many of the details of my project after so many years, but the basic premise of my idea was to represent the various hand-specific phonemic categories of ASL (hand shape, location, "internal" action and/or "verbal aspect") all with the same letters. How can, e.g., the letter 'a' represent both a hand shape (obviously the "A" fist) and a location (maybe directly in front of the sternum) and some kind of action (I don't know; maybe a lateral twisting movement)? By the position of the letter within the written ASL word. Unlike an English word, wherein each letter has been basically been assigned exactly one meaning and the letters are interpreted sequentially, an ASL word would comprise multiple slots. For the simpler ASL words, three slots might be sufficient: shape + location + movement. For other words, more slots could be used -- for example, initial shape + initial location + initial action + final shape + final location + final action.
This might seem odd at first blush. For the most part, writing systems for spoken languages don't use slots to differentiate between important parts of a spoken word. But "slot" notation isn't without precedent -- namely, numbers. In previous eras, different symbols represented different numbers. For the ancient Romans, for example, used V to denote 10 and C to denote 100. The ancient Greeks used kappa to denote 20 and lambda to denote 30. We moderns, however, don't (normally) use letters to represent all the various possible numbers. Instead, we use ten symbols, just ten; and we represent all the other numbers by moving these ten symbols from right to left. Essentially then, our number system has slots: ... + thousand + hundred + ten + one. A writing scheme for a sign language could likewise slots (as perhaps described above): shape + location + action.
I thought this was a neat idea when I was working on the project. There remain still a few difficulties, however. One of these difficulties is the large number of possible phonemes in ASL. Again, I can't remember the details, but I think each hand-related phonemic category has more than 26 possibilities. So ASL would need more than 26 letters (or use diacritics -- which I wanted to avoid). Or ASL would have to use a clever encoding to overcome this obstacle. Variable-length codes like the Huffman coding might inspire an adequate solution to this problem.
Another problem stems from ASL's wild-wild-west nature. In part because ASL has never had a writing system, speakers of ASL have not standardized their language to an extent necessary to facilitate the creation of an ASCII-only writing system. (Even if the ASL community were to find an ASCII-only script off-putting, speakers would nonetheless still benefit, I believe, from efforts to codify the language's phoneme inventories and the "aspectual" distinctions of its verbs. But that may only be my own opinion.)
One further problem may be the most intractable. While working on my project, I had little idea how to represent and manage all the NON-manual features of the language, of which there are many, many. The cheeks, lips, eyebrows, eye gaze, head movements all contribute to the meaning of a sentence. Since I'm in no way a native speaker, I couldn't recognize the significance of any of these characteristics. However, although I struggled with this dimension of signed languages, maybe others could devise clever solutions. I'd be very excited if anyone replies with their own ideas to manage non-manual cues.
I made such a segmented ASCII system called ASLSJ. It has some documentation at www.aslsj.com. Send me an email positivesigner at gmail.com and we can discuss some examples.
I am not deaf nor hard of hearing but I am learning asl in case of need. I am 13 years old and trying to figure out the alphabet in asl writing system. Do you have any ideas to where I can find the alphabet to learn it?
ASLWrite's website should have it, I linked it in the description.
ASLWrite's website should have it, I linked it in the description.
My main gripe on ASL Write system is a lack of official ASL dictionary in written ASL forms on every known signed words into the book where we are left feeling uncertain on how to write a proper ASL grammar. I do not mean the basic introduction and the gist of written words with workshop found on the book and leave to yourself on how to write and not everybody will understand that written ASL on paper. We are left to fend for ourselves. It is time consuming endeavour without a ASL-written dictionary to guide us along the way.
Without the dictionary where we have ASL Write on the dictionary for every written signed words on the book, this will not succeed. For example, we have English dictionary for every spoken words is written into the book and its word meanings while we lack ASL dictionary. If I need to write a word to describe something, I look up on the dictionary to check with spelling or the meaning of the word. Also the dictionary has a pronounces on how to speak a word, ASL dictionary doesn't. It needs to have a spelled signed word and the signed word and the meaning in signing form for this structure on the written ASL language to develop properly. I do not mean the existing ASL dictionary book with picture without any of ASL Write form or video dictionary with English displayed on the video and it's similar to English-French translation book..
Also, there is a lack of signed words for complicated English words that would differ that only scholars can understand with some variant where there is one signed word can be interpreter in different English words and conflict with thoughts and ability to understand one other suffers in communication form to the point of forcing myself to spell that certain words on non-existed signs from a English word and causing the signing form to go out of wack if I spell a word wrong in signed spelling form to make ourselves look bad to the point where I have to think of a right word to express if they do not know the word I'm speaking of. There are some signed words that do not even exist in English language which is why we need dictionary to explain the meaning of the signed word itself and if I am a hearing and I am learning ASL and I get stumbled into a signed word that do not exist in English struggle to understand the meaning of unique signed word. If we have the structure found on the dictionary in the future, we will then be able to develop the new signs for every new variants to differ from other signs because English words does have variant words and it's been developed for centuries.. Any new words added to the English dictionary did not exist few centuries ago and made it stick to the dictionary.
Hi Rogan, I love watching your videos I myself can hear but I have deaf friends and my brother is mute, so sign language is my second language. I've wondered (not sure if you've answered this question before) I know some deaf people speak while signing, have you ever been vocal? Just curious! :)
I haven't answered that before! It really depends a lot on my mood, and who I'm talking with. But I'd say maybe 95% of the time, I'm voice-off. Partly because I have a low and slightly loud voice, I suck with volume control, and how clearly someone understands me is very subjective. Some people can understand me pretty clearly, some can't, and even the same people who can understand me on some days can't on other days. So it's easier to not bother :P
Thank you so much for answering! :) It's interesting to see/learn how different hearing impaired people choose to communicate.
No problem! By the way, most Deaf* people dislike the term "hearing impaired." So just ask someone what they prefer to call themselves! :)
Sorry for my long reply but i liked your opinions. Very interesting debate. :)
For me, sign language is an oral language with hands, you speak express yourself with your body and create nuance with fast or slow movement with your hand. Spoken language are the same, except the body part is mostly conveyed by sound pitch.
So signs have no current writing system. Video aren't a sign writing system. Otherwise you could say radio is a writing system. And yes, video are the perfect medium for sign language because they are in 3D and writing them on a 2D paper is quite challenging mission and you lose lot of informations.
However, the same thing happen in spoken language. You don't know if the person is happy, angry, sad, nor pronounce those word but we found several way to share those informations, that how we came up with :
-phonetic system
-punctuation system
-smiley system
...
So, how do you express yourself in a letter ? Let's remove all technologies !
-You can write in your "native" language. But i often saw my deaf friends struggling with grammar and spelling. It's due to a lack of adapted education and their own language
-Create a new writting system adapted to sign ?
I hardly see it's potential in daily use, i am afraid it won't be very fast. But i think we don't need to draw face or hand, Chinese could be a great writing system for sign. It's visual and not based on sound. That's why, i think the current writing sign is awesome for archival purpose or converting text. The problem is that video need lot of resource and there are country where internet connection is so slow that you can't watch video.
Imagine a text with words i don't understand, i choose one. And the computer will check the whole sentence for key word and with scripts instead of having the word "rain" it will show you "pouring rain" or something like that. Something like that.
I am studying sign writing
I'm a (hearing) linguist and I've recently become interested in sign language. Creating a good writing system for sign language is something right up my alley... but I'll need to learn more about sign and how it works in order to make anything useful and practical.
If/ when I do create such a system, I think it'd be cool to start a blog in the writing system. Even if no one would be talking to me in it, just having a large body of written sign out there would be a useful learning resource for everyone, and could more quickly prompt a standardization. As others have pointed out, implementing written sign would simply be a matter of adding the system to Unicode; then it could be used straightforwardly in places like Facebook.
There are already a few well-developed writing systems, but as far as I'm aware, they're mostly relegated to academia; none have been widely adopted by language users themselves.
I would suggest you check out the Facebook group, ASLwrite. It’s a fairly well developed writing system and was done by deaf people. It just hasn’t become widespread because learning it isn’t that easy, and there’s no formal classes to learn it.
One issue is the varying quality of cameras.
Hello, thank you for the video. I don't read all comments. I am wondering anyone mention about facial expression in ASL writing? IT is THE big challenge in ASL writing, almost impossible to do it. I too like filming ASL better than writing ASL.
Good question! No one did, and yes you can somewhat add facial expression in sign writing. It's not perfect, but then again, facial expressions are extremely varied.
It seems to me that the history of writing is often romanticized. The four places in history that developed writing systems were due to having actual needs - agriculture for growing communities required more brain power than individuals could muster. They needed to offload their past learning into written documents. This way new people can learn what to do without bugging the few people already know, effectively creating government ordinances. Seeing the power of communicating across distances, some people borrowed the government's writing system and tailored it for their own purposes. The most effective motivator for learning to read and write has always been a government requiring someone to understand a writing system under punishment of losing money.
I believe writing to be useful as an alternate rendering of ideas. Yes, ASL videos capture your meaning accurately for someone who knows ASL. It has a lot of nuance that culturally literate people may notice. But the closed captions are there to eliminate the nuances. You use standard spelling and proper grammar so others can look up your meaning even if they are not culturally literate English speakers.
If you had published your captions in a blog post, people can actually read four times faster than your speech / signing. I could skim the paragraphs of the blog post, quickly looking for something that is relevant to me. It can be indexed by Google, or I can just use the Find feature in my browser for particular words. It can be automatically (though poorly) translated into hundreds of other languages. I can print it out and highlight parts of it for review later. Dictionary writers, encyclopedias, magazines, books, newspapers, etc. can use your blog post as source material.
ASLWrite or Si5s could realize these kind benefits. My personal take is that an alphabet is better than picture writing because it doubles as an index. I created the ASLSJ writing system because I wanted to use ASL words in my computer programs. It only uses the alphabet's letters, so I could upload the closed captions for your video in ASLSJ today.
Your video starts with the ASL word "hello." In English, each letter of a word phonetically tells you how to move your lips, tongue, and throat to pronounce the word. In ASLSJ, the word "bepo-r" phonetically tells you to put your open-B handshape (the first two letters - be) in front of your chin (the next letter - p) with the palm turned out (next letter - o) then move the hand to the right (-r). "bepo-r" is an ASL idea. It does not require translation into English and it does not require an artist's painting like ASLWrite or Si5s. Now I can create a dictionary to hold that word and thousands more. Unfortunately it wouldn't help because nobody would want to read it - so we're back to square one.
First, thank you for your long comment and the mini history lesson! I enjoyed reading it.
I have actually considered starting to do a transcript of sorts to go with my videos, edited slightly to read better. I do have a website that I post on whenever I release a new video, and occasionally other things. I could just take the captions and turn them into a transcript, put them underneath the video. OR I could instead make it a blog post and link to the video. Hmm.
Establishing a written system that everyone could easily learn, and use every day, is tough! Especially when so many people say we don't need it, we already have English.
There is BSL couple who worked to get their baby's BSL sign name registered on the baby's birth cirtificate. UbOtDDstarL (looks like the ASL word for "pill") is the first of her three middle names: Hazel UbOtDDstarL Holly Eileen Garfield-Lichy.
I have a blog post that I've been updating as I find people who have reasons to want written Sign Language. I'm afraid the list isn't as big as I would hope, considering it goes back 100 years. Please let me know if I've missed anything.
aslsj.blogspot.com/2011/08/desire-for-asl-writing.html
I saw that story! That'd be cool to do, though now there's a trend (one that I am more supportive of) where people wait until their children are two or three years old to give a sign name. That way, they can give something based on personality or behaviors.
Thanks for the blog post, I'll check it out!
I'ce been hearing my whole life, but I've had a bit of a mild interest in sign language. I feel like written sign would be more helpful if there was actually one universal/auxilary/international sign language that could unite a global deaf community rather than people filtered by the hearing languages of where they live, and then further filtered by the individual sign languages in each place. I do think there is use to having a written form of sign. Hearing people write things instead of just having recordings of everything because it takes less resources (including more modern ones, like storage and bandwith), and with something written out, it is (in my opinion, theoretically) easier to skim back over if you need to refresh or find specific information. I could also see utility if you're in a deaf community wanting to write things (even quick notes) and not wanting to have to switch to the written form of the local hearing language. Spelling and fingerspelling seem to be a strong part of sign languages anyway though, so I'm not sure how much benefit written sign has over just writing in "normal" writing. (Finger)spelling is potentially an issue that makes developing a universal sign language difficult, but I think looking to, like, Chinese and maybe other logographic language systems could be potentially helpful.
This is just my personal opinion but as a deaf person with cochlear implant, I find signing videos to be more helpful since you can see facial expressions, body language, and how to properly sign certain words. It's also far more engaging than a written form would have with the viewers.
However, having a written form of ASL would be extremely helpful, especially in the medical fields. My biggest fear is a doctor or any medical practitioner sending their patients home with a written form and them not understanding the instructions of self care and do not want to ask their practitioner because of communication difficulties. That causes them more harm than help, so I definitely support written ASL if they can be used in the medical fields and consumer related fields to create equality among the consumers.
That's why I would prefer videos, then I know I'm getting it exactly right, and I feel more connection with whoever it is!
That's true, I didn't think about it in a medical perspective. Good thinking!
i personally think writing would be really nice for signlangs
I am hearing but I find it a complicated topic. I mean of course it'd be great to have it in general but like you already said - where is the everyday benefit from it? You could write with deaf people or people who know the language but with those you can also send small videos since I assume they know SL too when they can read and write it. As in the everyday life by comunication with others like employees at a shop or whatever they would need to know the written form unless it doesn't give you any benefit. At least in my eyes!
in my ASL classes we use capitalized english words with asl grammar, no punctuation, and no prefixes or suffixes.
What’s your name? = YOU NAME WHAT
I went to the store and bought milk last week = LAST WEEK ME GO STORE BUY MILK
but obviously thats not written ASL. its english words. very good for learning ASL grammar though
Yep, that's called gloss! It's used in linguistics, not just ASL :)
God bless in Jesus Name thank you for the video brother
Speaking from a hearing perspective, I think a form of written ASL could be very useful. I think you could keep a better record of ASL and how it's evolving. You could describe and teach people new signs easier and quicker (if you knew the system, you would automatically know how to sign something correctly by seeing it in its written form unlike pictures in current ASL textbooks and dictionaries..... unless it ends up like English and the signs start to not match up with the writing, but I think there's a long way to go before we get to that point). And I just generally think it's great to be able to write something in your native language. We don't always have time to make a video. However, despite this, I don't know that it'd catch on for the reasons that you stated in the video.
Good point! And it might be quicker to write sometimes, especially if we want to upload it to a page, group, or something like that.
bviously you haven't considered the ways this would revolutionize cheating on tests or signing behind the teacher's back in deaf schools
I have a question unrelated but thought I’d ask.....
when songs are being interpreted in church and the words are up on a screen is it better to sign word for word or in concepts or ask? Does that make sense? Like sometimes a solo is being sung but the words are displayed in a screen so what is better? Or hymns congregationally? I guess an example would be like in the song where it uses the phrase grapes of wrath are stored
Ask! The church I grew up in has words on the screen, but I still prefer the interpreter to sign more closely to the words. I might sign more ASL myself, but I like the terp doing it that way because then they’re not trying too hard to translate the concepts correctly when I already understand them. But someone else might prefer concept translation because they struggle with English and all of its oddities. So asking is always the best route.
Thank you so much Rogan, I really appreciate your response and input! I will ask. I just noticed last Sunday that there seemed to be some differences in the way the interpreter signed and the way that our deaf visitor would start to sign and it seemed a little confusing to me! I’m just learning so I don’t want to be intrusive or rude at all! Thanks
Honestly. It isn't needed. You were right in the face that we already have a written language which of course is videos.
Fact, not face.
I just want Facebook to make it less cumbersome to communicate with videos! The best way I know how right now is to record the video on my computer or phone, and then upload it. Sometimes, they take quite awhile to load, and they often don't want to post from my phone. I wish Facebook had some sort of internal video system or something! Most of the exposure I get to ASL (expressive and receptive) is online, and I want it to be easy to communicate with my Deaf friends through video!
ASL is definitely a language and schools not recognizing that are puting more importance on foreigners outside of this country and foreigners who don’t know English inside this country and not seeing deaf people as equals. That’s how I see it. I think it would be helpful to have some written rules or language to help us learn ASL. However, the whole reason sign language was developed was for inclusion-to bring attention to the fact that deaf people are people too and are not stupid or dumb. Developing sign language was also to bring deaf people more into the fold than they were way back when. It was for unity sake and education as well as all the other reasons language is important. I do personally thing that pigeon should not be put down but embraced a whole lot more than it is in order to create unity in this country with hearing and deaf/hh. It seems as time goes on the divide only widens and one up a ship is at the helm. I’m not against ASL for community sake, but I do wish the goal was more comming togetherness than it is.