Hoi,
As you know copyright is not as relevant as license. SignWriting is
available under free licenses. SignWriting is older then any of the Free
licenses anyway, this was the reason why there was no mention at all about
licenses and copyright. What has always been abundantly clear was that
people were encouraged to use SignWriting. Currently there is no longer an
issue, all the necessary components are available under a Free license.
When people claim that deaf people are able to read and write in the
"dominant" language, they forget that this has never been a reason to deny
people their Wikipedia in their language. We do allow people who speak a
native American language their projects. Sign languages are as different
from the "dominant" language as native American languages are from Spanish,
Portuguese or English.
What is relevant to many of the languages that we support is, does a culture
exist that can be associated with the language as well. This is very much
the case with the Deaf communities. There are things like poetry in sign
language, poetry that cannot be translated in spoken language. When people
write in their own language they give a different perspective on the same
concepts. Different because you have to express it differently.
Thanks,
GerardM
2008/11/23 Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com>
The whole situation has some very interesting
questions.
- Hasn't SW been copyrighted in the US?
- Many people claim that all deaf are literate in dominate languages
of their area, but while this is partially true (almost all deaf in,
say, the US are functionally literate), it's also true that many
people are much more proficient and understand their signed language
better than the written form of any spoken language. There's more to
that discussion, I think, though.
- There are many alternative methods for writing signed languages.
Most people who sign don't write it at all, however.
- How will the current trend of parents of deaf and HoH children
favoring cochlear implants affect the future of ASL? (This question is
interesting, but has little impact on an American Sign Language
Wikipedia in the short-term)
In general, I have a positive view of the request.
Mark
2008/11/23 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>om>:
Hoi,
SignWriting is a script. Consequently what it produces is as faithful a
representation as other scripts like the Latin or the Cyrillic. The
notion
that you can compare it to a constructed language
is false as a
consequence.
Many people who are deaf have not learned to read
and write in their own
language. They have learned to struggle with languages that are totally
foreign to them as they are based on spoken language. There is an
inherent
inability to learn our sound based languages,
this is exactly why
deafness
is considered to be a disability.
It is true that many deaf people do not know how to write their own
language. It is because of the lack of of a script that the Deaf
communities
have a problem retaining much of the vocabulary
that goes out of fashion.
It
is because of this that their culture is to be
given to the next
generation
by rote and consequently much is lost.
The SignWriting community is steadily getting more attention. A school
here,
a school there, interest from another country..
They have asked for a
Wikipedia and it is only for the technical reasons that we have not given
them "eligibility" status yet. These technical reasons are being
overcome.
Thanks,
GerardM
2008/11/23 Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com>
> On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 5:28 PM, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > The proposal is for ASL to be written in SignWriting. This has the
added
> > benefit that whatever is actually
written can also be edited in our
wiki
> > style. The problem with video is that
you cannot change it and
> consequently
> > it is not really Wiki.
> >
> > Steve Slevinsky is working on an extension that will allow for the
> writing
> > of any sign languages using SignWriting. I understand that he is even
> > cosidering another skin.. This will allow for much of the user
interface
to
be localised.
But SignWriting is not sign-language: Many people who are deaf and use
ASL (and, I presume, other forms of sign language) are unaware of and
have no interest in SignWriting as being deaf does not result in an
inherit inability to communicate using more common written languages.
As far as I am aware SignWriting characters do not occur in any
standard character see, further complicating use. I have no
opposition to supporting SignWriting, but Wikis in SignWritten
signlanguage probably should be regarded as any other conlang projects
are, and certainly not regarded as an accessibility effort.
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