1st full community proposal for toki pona sign language

Signs and symbols: Writing systems (hieroglyphs, nail writing) and Signed Toki Pona; unofficial scripts too
Signoj kaj simboloj: Skribsistemoj (hieroglifoj, ungoskribado) kaj la Tokipona Signolingvo; ankaŭ por neoficialaj skribsistemoj
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janMato
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1st full community proposal for toki pona sign language

Post by janMato »

from jan Kitope

http://chuff.tumblr.com/post/4501142477 ... n-language

Pros:
Can be signed 1 handed. This is very handy for baby-SL. In fact, at the moment, this is how I would recommend anyone teach toki pona to their toddler.
Uses facial expressions, but at the moment it appears non-grammatical.

Funny observations:
ASL cough became "olin"
ike a is that bad furniture store

Work to do:
the grammatical particles of la, en, e, pi in written toki pona make up like 20%+ of all words (that seems low, I should look up the real numbers). Speaking these is cheap-- it takes a few milliseconds to speak them, however to sign them would be an unbearable speed bump. This is why exact signed french (that signed every single word ending) was a failure, and why even isolating English's exact signed English is a failure. Exact signing systems are the efficiency equivalent of writing all languages in IPA-- it's over kill, more info than needed and would make for really long written words.

ASL deals with grammatical markers using facial expressions (e.g. question markers, topical markers) and space (e.g. left right shift for signing and/or constructions). A tp sign language doesn't need to copy ASL, but it would need to use an "inexpensive" way to mark topic, subject, object, pi chains, etc.

I still plan to teach my new son some toki pona, it will be signed with this system (vocab wise at least), hopefully improvements will be proposed for dealing the the high cost of signing grammatical particles as words rather than some other "stacked"/simultaneous marker.
janKipo
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Re: 1st full community proposal for toki pona sign language

Post by janKipo »

open pona li li tawa pona pini.
Some of these signs are "natural," but not all the ones that seem to have such forms.
Possibly, position of articulation would make a handy shortcut for grammatical role: upper right for 'la', shoulder for subject, center for DO, lower left for PP, for example. Cheap but clear (I think -- sometimes more so that the written forms).
Last edited by janKipo on Sun Mar 10, 2013 10:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Kuti
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Re: 1st full community proposal for toki pona sign language

Post by Kuti »

mi sona ala e toki luka, taso toki luka ni li pona tawa toki pona.
I don't know about sign languages, but this creation is a very good thing.
janMato
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Location: Takoma Park, MD
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Re: 1st full community proposal for toki pona sign language

Post by janMato »

I second the idea about doing grammatical signs by locational slots.

Oh, another though I had when reviewing this... I read in "Talking Hands" by Fox that sign languages tend to draw on a very small number of handshapes, typically 5-6 or so, more for more established languages. These hand signs are akin to the phonemes of the language. Toki pona signed, if it were abstract should have a very small number of handshapes.

The other possible meaning of "simple" is that the signs are iconic enough that they are simple to learn. Like writing systems, the choice comes down to aethetics.
janKipo
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Re: 1st full community proposal for toki pona sign language

Post by janKipo »

Don't forget finger spelling for proper adjectives. this might increase the number of signs a bit (some ASL letters seem already in use here, but I am no good at nuance).
janKitope
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Joined: Mon Mar 11, 2013 3:15 pm

Re: 1st full community proposal for toki pona sign language

Post by janKitope »

Hi everyone.

This is jan Kitope, aka thechuff. I made this and wanted to respond to a few things with what I've already said to jan Mato.

While basing the grammatical particles and whatnot spatially is a great idea, the reason I went with having individual signs for them was so that phrases could be signed with a R-L subsequent two-handed option (as well as the one-handed as an option).
It's, of course, not too late to add the spatial grammaticality in on the post now! :)

And I do mention on the post that ASL spelling is maintained for proper adjectives.

Thank you all for your encouraging and constructive comments!
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