From: vlb@apple.com (Vicki Brown)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: ASL, SEE, PSE, etc...
Date: 15 Oct 92 04:35:43 GMT
Reply-To: vlb@apple.com (Vicki Brown)
Organization: Apple Computer Inc.
X-Fidonet: Silent Talk Conference
Originator: wtm@sheldev.shel.isc-br.com

Index Number: 25025

In article <25002@handicap.news> Jack.O'keeffe@f26.n129.z1.fidonet.org writes:
>Index Number: 25002
>
> SB> True, but remember all PSE and SEE is based upon ASL. ASL is
> SB> the true sign language. PSE and SEE techinally are not sign
> SB> languages.
>
>I suppose that may be the viewpoint of NAD and some narrow-minded
>Deaf cultists, Steve.  However, that doesn't make it correct.  Why
>do you say that PSE and SEE are "techinally" (sic) not sign languages?
>Can you support that statement?
>
>PSE and SEE are based on ASL (plus a whole lot more).  ASL is based
>on LSF.  LSF is based on the Latin alphabet.  Saying that a language
>is not "true" because it is based on another language is ludicrous.
>Every language I know of contains elements of other languages.
>By your standard there would be no such thing as a true language.

I wouldn't say that any sign language is based on the Roman
alphabet.  Fingerspelling is, yes, but fingerspelling isn't a
language, it's just letters.  Just as the Roman alphabet is not, in
itself, English (or German, or French, or any other language that
uses those letters in its written form).

PSE and SEE are not technically considered sign languages because,
while they are signed, they are not considered true languages.

ASL is considered a language because it grows.  New words are
created by the users and are shared among them.  ASL has its own
grammar.  But largely, it was created by its user population over a
period of time, because that community needed to communicate.

SEE is, strictly, a coding system, not a language.  It was
invented, not over time by its users, but in a laboratory, by
researchers, as a way to teach English using signs.  SEE is a way
to take signs and match them one for one with English.  From SEE we
get such amusing signs as BUTTER (the spread) + FLY (the verb!) =
Butterfly (the insect).  In ASL there is a sign for the thing:
BUTTERFLY.  So SEE is a code for English using many of the signs
found in ASL.  ASL is not a code for English.

PSE is sort of the hybrid in between.  Approximate English word
order, no special codes for endings and things that don't have
signs in ASL.  Like any other Pidgin, it's a conglomeration of two
languages, in the hopes that the two language communities will be
able to communicate.  I don't know if linguists consider Pidgin of
any sort to be a "language".  Perhaps a dialect.  There are lots of
Pidgins in the world.

The problem a lot of people have with PSE and SEE versus ASL is
this.  Let's say I know English and you know German.  So I take a
dictionary and find German words that translate to certain
approximate English meanings.  I make a one-to-one match (no fair
having a word translate more than one way; pick *one*).  Then I use
the German words, in English word order, with English grammar, and
I invent new some German-sounding "words" for any endings and parts
of speech that aren't present in German.  Is it German?  Is it
English?  It's a code; is it a language?

      Vicki Brown                  A/UX Development Group
      Internet: vlb@apple.com      Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino, CA
              Ooit'n Normaal Mens Ontmoet?  En..., Beviel't?
        (Have you ever met a normal person?  So..., did you like it?)