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From: James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org (James Womack)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: See
Message-ID: <18307@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 23 Mar 91 03:05:22 GMT
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[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]

Thanks for the reminder, Tim. I sure needed it. Ok, now let me see,
heheheheheh.  Ok, urk, it has been a long time since I bothered with
SEE, so if anybody out there sees that I am not quite right in my details,
kindly feel welcome to correct me.

Tim, there were two SEE sign systems. One was Signing Essential English.
If I recall right, this system retained the basic ASL sign motions
but added specific handshapes to better conform to the "English" concept
of the word. This system also added word endings and prefixes. You
said "prearranged" by signing "before" with a "p" handshape and then
signed "plan." Syntax or word order was also adhered to

The other SEE was Signing Exact English. Here was where you signed
an exact word order and you signed sentences in exact English. The
difference was that for a deafie, this horse manure of the lowest order.
For example, "My nose is running." You signed withthe handshape of
the first letter of each word. Use "M" to make "my" etc etc. However,
the sign for running was the same sign you used to prescribe to normal
running. You got the idea that the nose had somehow jumped off your
face and headed down the road full steam.

The sheer awkwardness of both systems resulted in themajority of deaf
people simply dumping the systems. The Culturally Deaf makes fun of
the systems to this day. It was even down on national tv once inthe
prgram The Deaf Prospective. Sometimes you got signs that would be
unbelieveable insulting to deaf people were they used in normal day
to day conversation. It was just one for example of hearies and "think
hearing" deaf people who utterly ignored the cultural dignity of Deaf
people and sought to impose their own hearing based cultural communication
norm on us. It got soundly rejected just like any people with a cultural
would reject such blantant intrusions by another people.

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