Manually coded language: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:26, 15 February 2022

Revision as of 16:26, 15 February 2022

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These systems ("[[Signed English]]", "Signed German" and so on) were the vehicle for the world-wide explosion of MCLs in deaf education in the second half of the 20th century, and are what is generally meant by the phrase "manually coded language" today. They aim to be a word-for-word representation of the written form of an oral language, and accordingly require the development of an enormous vocabulary. They usually achieve this by taking signs ("[[lexicon]]") from the local deaf [[sign language]] as a base, then adding specially created signs for words and word endings that do not exist in the deaf sign language, often using "initializations", and filling in any gaps with [[fingerspelling]]. Thus "Signed English" in America (based on ASL) has a lexicon quite different from "Signed English" in Britain (based on [[British Sign Language|BSL]]), as well as the Signed Englishes of Ireland, Australasia and South Africa. "[[Signing Exact English]]" (SEE2) was developed in the United States in 1969, has also been taught around the world, and is now used in deaf schools in [[Singapore]], and taught in classes by the Singapore Association for the Deaf.<ref>[http://www.sadeaf.org.sg/Sign%20Language.htm Sign Language] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070302160237/http://www.sadeaf.org.sg/Sign%20Language.htm |date=2007-03-02 }} (Singapore Association or the Deaf website)</ref>

===Mouth–HandMouth–hand Systemssystems===

Another widespread approach is to visually represent the [[phoneme]]s (sounds) of an oral language, rather than using signs for the words. These systems are sometimes known as "Mouth Hand Systems" (MHS). An early example was developed in Denmark in 1903 by Georg Forchhammer.<ref>Birch-Rasmussen, S. (1982). ''Mundhandsystemet.'' Copenhagen: Doves Center for Total Kommunikation.<br>Reynolds, Brian Watkins (1980). ''Speechreading training related to the Danish mouth handsystem for adventitiously hearing impaired adults.'' Ann Arbor : U.M.I. 1980 - 145 p. Dissertation: Purdue Univ.</ref> Others include the Assisted Kinemes Alphabet (Belgium) and a [[Persian language|Persian]] system developed in 1935 by [[Jabar Baghtcheban]]<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20091027133902/http://geocities.com/abehmanesh/IranDeaf.htm Deaf Way II Presentation On Iranian Deaf Culture], by Abbas Ali Behmanesh</ref>—in addition to the most widespread MHS worldwide, [[Cued Speech]]. As the entire set of phonemes for an oral language is small (English has 35 to 45, depending on the [[dialect]]), an MHS is relatively easy to adapt for other languages.