Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!YANG.CPAC.WASHINGTON.EDU!dennis From: dennis@YANG.CPAC.WASHINGTON.EDU (Dennis Gentry) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Global Cultural Prototype Message-ID: <8910200201.AA11470@yang.cpac.washington.edu> Date: 20 Oct 89 02:01:54 GMT References: <1989Oct18.234716.10196@uncecs.edu> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 41 I think this whole thread is just a little off the topic, but it's interesting to me anyway, so here goes: Date: 18 Oct 89 23:47:16 GMT From: ecsvax.uncecs.edu!dgary (D Gary Grady) Organization: Datalytics, Inc. For what it's worth, there are many blind and deaf Esperantists. The first person I ever saw reading high-speed Braille was doing so in Esperanto.... I think there may even be a few deaf-blind (that's deaf *and* blind) Esperantists in Seattle. Unfortunately, there are numerous, incompatible sign languages in use in various countries. In the United States the main two are American Sign Language (Ameslan) and Signed English (Siglish).... Someone asked how blind people could use sign language. Well, deaf-blind people use "tactile" sign language. Some of them have severe tunnel vision, but they can still use their remaining sight to watch signing. If that doesn't work, or in addition, they can simply touch the hands of the person signing and figure out what's going on. It's kind of interesting when they have meetings: no more than two or three deaf-blind people can "listen" to one "speaker." Usually, some deaf (but not blind) helpers watch the main "speaker," and they re-sign the "speaker's" message. I think ASL (American Sign Language) is by a large margin the predominant sign language in the U.S. I don't know who suggested that sign language was universal, but it's not. ASL is complex, with its own syntax that differs from English. The British deaf community has a different sign language that is more different from ASL than spoken English and American. I don't know what they use anywhere else, but I'm pretty sure it's not much compatible with ASL. I took about a year of ASL, and I don't think it's any easier to learn than French. (I'm a native English speaker). Dennis