Exhausting to do for a long period, and requires a direct and deliberate sight line to work - there will be no shouting “fire”.
It’s actually been suggested the earliest languages could have been sign languages, since other apes don’t fully voluntarily control their noises. I would guess the above are why we moved on.
IIRC there still are dialects. Like, a gesture exists on a continuum of possibly trajectories, and one “speaker” might do it slightly differently from another.
Yeah, there’s different sign language “languages”, with other variations and slang. No perfect system. Plus words for things thar only exist in that area, like a schnitzel vs fried chicken. It’d still be great if we could codify a thorough set of words that are the same across the board for basics like bicycle, toilet, hospital, food, drink, face, leg, etc., things we all have generally in common, so that learning the area specific words would be all that is needed.
Yeah, but like, something that’s signed on the face might be signed higher or lower, even if it’s the same variant of the same sign, for example. Kind of like how my “oo” might be different from your “oo” even if we’re both saying “roof”. And then maybe people start doing it on the neck…
I’m not sure it’s any different or better in that way.
I would prefer some kind of sign language
Exhausting to do for a long period, and requires a direct and deliberate sight line to work - there will be no shouting “fire”.
It’s actually been suggested the earliest languages could have been sign languages, since other apes don’t fully voluntarily control their noises. I would guess the above are why we moved on.
I like this idea. Generally somewhat simplified, and no “pronunciation” needed if it were standardized.
IIRC there still are dialects. Like, a gesture exists on a continuum of possibly trajectories, and one “speaker” might do it slightly differently from another.
Yeah, there’s different sign language “languages”, with other variations and slang. No perfect system. Plus words for things thar only exist in that area, like a schnitzel vs fried chicken. It’d still be great if we could codify a thorough set of words that are the same across the board for basics like bicycle, toilet, hospital, food, drink, face, leg, etc., things we all have generally in common, so that learning the area specific words would be all that is needed.
Yeah, but like, something that’s signed on the face might be signed higher or lower, even if it’s the same variant of the same sign, for example. Kind of like how my “oo” might be different from your “oo” even if we’re both saying “roof”. And then maybe people start doing it on the neck…
I’m not sure it’s any different or better in that way.
I understand that, which is why I suggested a codified standard for those “sames” we have in common so that they’re all signed the same.