Ka upane! (2017)

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Re: Ka upane! 2017 (NZSL ☾, Hawaiian ☾, Russian ☉)

Postby blaurebell » Tue Feb 21, 2017 7:20 am

Teango wrote:"War and Peace" is easier to read than "Night Watch" (I really didn't see that one coming!)


That's really interesting! Both are books I want to read and I'm listening to the audiobook of Night Watch for getting used to the rhythm of Russian. So far I really understand nothing at all, apart from a word here and there. Why exactly do you think it is more difficult to read than War and Peace?
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Re: Ka upane! 2017 (NZSL ☾, Hawaiian ☾, Russian ☉)

Postby Teango » Tue Feb 21, 2017 8:30 am

blaurebell wrote:
Teango wrote:"War and Peace" is easier to read than "Night Watch" (I really didn't see that one coming!)

Why exactly do you think it is more difficult to read than War and Peace?

I'm still quite perplexed myself. Lukyanenko does use some rather poetic turns of phrase from time to time, especially in his introductory paragraphs to chapters. I recall performing a unique word family count for both "We" (Zamyatin) and "Night Watch" back in 2011 using a morphological analyser and some Python coding (I used to be a computational linguist by trade before my move to Hawaiʻi). When I compared the two corpora, the results were quite depressing (especially considering I'd just finished reading "We" using an intensive study method): knowledge of every single word form in Zamyatin's short novel would still only lead to 79% lexical coverage in "Night Watch"! Perhaps Lukyanenko has a very different idiolect from other authors I've read up till now, or maybe I just need to join the Watch first to be able to read their esoteric texts? ;)
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Re: Ka upane! 2017 (NZSL ☾, Hawaiian ☾, Russian ☉)

Postby blaurebell » Tue Feb 21, 2017 9:30 am

I don't find that comparison too surprising actually and it would probably also be true for any other combination of two novels set in different times and with different topics. Even with comparable novels of the same length on a similar topic the difference can be immense. I didn't do any proper analysis, so can't speak about words, but with intensive reading I can make some rough estimates on just word forms. According to my Learning with Texts statistics the first Harry Potter book in French has about 6000 word forms. In the second Harry Potter book I came across 3600 new word forms and those have roughly the same length and talk about the same topic - magic and life at a boarding school. All of Harry Potter contains roughly 27000 word forms. And that's all one topic, same writing style, set at the same time. Even after reading 5000 pages any new novel in French meant at least a 1000 new word forms in LWT, at that point usually unknown new low frequency vocabulary rather than new forms of already seen words.

Good to know that War and Peace is easier! I wanted to throw in Night watch after the fantasy series I'm reading in translation, but I might just start off with War and Peace instead.
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Re: Ka upane! 2017 (NZSL ☾, Hawaiian ☾, Russian ☉)

Postby Teango » Thu Feb 23, 2017 1:29 pm

I was going to post this as a reply in the "You know you're a language nerd when..." thread, but thought it better placed here due to its unexpected length and...well...specifically sign language related nerdiness. ;)

Cainntear wrote:
vogeltje wrote:
Teango wrote:When you read "Sign in to Goodreads to Learn More" and your hands automatically move to sign good read [+pl. classifier]...

I met a deaf girl yesterday and I thought of you and that you'd talk in sign langauge with her, although I don't know if she knows it. I don't think that all deaf people know sign language. She can speak spoken English, but you can notice that she's deaf when she speaks. I would love to learn sign language.

Teango speaks New Zealand Sign Language, not British Sign Language.

As part of the same BANZSL language family, NZSL, Auslan, and BSL are pretty much kissing cousins. As far as I know, NZSL is based on a much earlier form of BSL (which is now quite distinct from modern BSL and its variations), but it has also been influenced by Auslan, Irish Sign Language, and Māori, as well as ASL more recently and to a lesser but increasing extent (which like Irish Sign Language, is part of the French Sign Language family and more distantly related).

I'm not sure how accurate the data is on Wikipedia regarding lexical similarity between BSL and NZSL, but both the BSL and NZSL entries on Wikipedia cite the same source as McKee & Kennedy (2000). The BSL entry claims that "Auslan, BSL and NZSL have 82% of signs identical (using concepts from a Swadesh list). When considering similar or related signs as well as identical, they are 98% cognate.", whereas the NZSL entry claims that "There are 62.5% similarities found in British Sign Language and NZSL, compared with 33% of NZSL signs found in American Sign Language."

A quick glance over at the Discussion section of the cited article reveals that the results largely depend upon which set of words were used for testing similarity:
As we noted, on lexicostatistical grounds (Crowley, 1992), 36% to 81% commonality of signs in two languages suggests that the languages belong to the same family. Above 81%, they are dialects of the same language. It is clear, therefore, that the evidence relating to Swadesh's core concepts summarized in Table 5.3 shows that the three varieties - Auslan, BSL, and NZSL - are dialects of the same language. On grounds of mutual intelligibility, the anecdotal evidence from the Deaf community also supports this position. However, using the randomly selected NZSL signs as the basis for comparison, the three sign languages are shown to have less in common. On the evidence of the analysis of randomly selected NZSL signs, we are obliged to suggest that the speech varieties share between 62.5% and 66% of their lexicon and that some significant divergence has occurred within the family of languages.

Johnston (2003) also suggests that "Auslan, BSL and NZSL should be considered as varieties or dialects of the same sign language, with an even higher degree of mutual intelligibility and lexical overlap than hitherto assumed". Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a hold of this article, but would be interested in looking over the data sometime and getting some numbers on this.

From my own limited experience with BSL and NZSL, I've noticed considerable overlap in signs and syntax, and am delighted with the thought of these two languages (oh, and let's not forget Auslan too) being mutually intelligible (3 for the price of 1.x!) I am very reluctant, however, to accept that NZSL and BSL are simply dialects of the same language and would need to research this further. I believe there's so much more to comparing languages than simple lexicostatistical analyses (and with only one out of a half a dozen different Swadesh lists at that), and the results when using randomly chosen signs in McKee & Kennedy's (2000) study falls well below the criteria set out by Crowley (1992) for designating them as dialects.

TLDR; New Zealand, Australian, and British Sign Language may be closely related, but I've yet to be convinced they're dialects of the same language. More research is required.
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Re: Ka upane! 2017 (NZSL ☾, Hawaiian ☾, Russian ☉)

Postby IronMike » Thu Feb 23, 2017 5:50 pm

The wife and I learned about teaching infants sign language after we'd had our (first) three kids. Thought we were done. Surprise child #4. So we decided at that point, hells yeah, we're teaching this kid sign language.

You see, our kids were all late talkers/early walkers. Our kids were all small, as well. We would have our 8- or 9-month old at the mall walking pretty confidently. People looking at her or him like we've got some magical infant-shaped puppet on strings. It was uncanny. But all these kids took till about 3 years old before their first full sentence. ("You no love me!" was our daughter's first full sentence at 3 years old...!)

So when #4 was cooking in the oven, we decided we'd start this one off quick with sign language. We used Signing Time (highly recommended). From about a year old, Lucy would sit in front of the TV with her five-year old sister watching these videos. It took a while, but it paid itself in full one day when Lucy came to me (all of about 18 months old) and started signing something she wanted. She wanted some kind of food, but I didn't know the sign for the particular item. I asked Maggie, who said "Lucy wants a pear." I squatted down to my toddler and told her in sign and English: So sorry sweety, we don't have any pears. She was so upset and kept crying and signing that she wanted a pear, pointing at the refrigerator. Maggie told me, "Mommy bought pears today." So I opened the fridge, and sure enough, Lucy pointed to the pears and told me, again in Sign, that she wanted a pear.

All previous kids at this age would just cry and scream and babble in a language the wife and I didn't understand, obviously wanting something but we never knew what. Having a kid who constructed a full sentence in Sign at 18 months, fully 18 months earlier than her siblings spoke, well, that was so nice.

All of this is simply to say, Yes, Sign with an infant is an excellent idea! Good luck!
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Re: Ka upane! 2017 (NZSL ☾, Hawaiian ☾, Russian ☉)

Postby Cainntear » Thu Feb 23, 2017 5:59 pm

Those estimates aren't much different from similarities between various western European languages really, are they? So calling these "dialects" but calling Portuguese and Spanish "related languages" seems like a very arbitrary distinction (as does any "language vs dialect" debate).

Also, I seem to recall reading that unrelated sign languages have more similarities with each other than unrelated verbal languages have, and that there's less variation overall in signed languages. Is this right? If so, the threshold for what counts as "highly similar" should be much higher for any two sign languages than would be true for verbal languages.
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Re: Ka upane! 2017 (NZSL ☾, Hawaiian ☾, Russian ☉)

Postby Jar-Ptitsa » Thu Feb 23, 2017 9:24 pm

Cainntear wrote:Those estimates aren't much different from similarities between various western European languages really, are they? So calling these "dialects" but calling Portuguese and Spanish "related languages" seems like a very arbitrary distinction (as does any "language vs dialect" debate).


But between Spanish and Portuguese it's the pronunciation that make them less transparent, the words can be identical but you don't know if you hear it in Spanish then Portuguese. If you can infiltrate Portuguese's pronunciation, then you can see the similarity with Spanish I think.


Cainntear wrote:Also, I seem to recall reading that unrelated sign languages have more similarities with each other than unrelated verbal languages have, and that there's less variation overall in signed languages. Is this right? If so, the threshold for what counts as "highly similar" should be much higher for any two sign languages than would be true for verbal languages.


Yes, I had heard the same thing, but someone said that they didn't understand a different one at all. Someone on a thread here.
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Re: Ka upane! 2017 (NZSL ☾, Hawaiian ☾, Russian ☉)

Postby Teango » Thu Feb 23, 2017 11:43 pm

@IronMike
Thanks, Mike! It's really encouraging to read other parents' opinions on using sign language with a hearing infant, especially from a super-dad with 4 children (respectful salute, sir)!! I've already noticed that my little daughter has progressed in leaps and bounds with regards to hand-eye coordination, and I harbor the hope that all this additional signing I do with her has helped out in some way. As NZSL doesn't seem to have a distinct sign for "pear" (it's the same sign as for apple), I will now proceed directly to my other sign dictionaries and learn any possible signs for "pear" there too (just in case... ;) ).

As promised: BSL (first video), Auslan (variation 1) and (variation 2), ASL.
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Re: Ka upane! 2017 (NZSL ☾, Hawaiian ☾, Russian ☉)

Postby Teango » Thu Feb 23, 2017 11:44 pm

@Cainntear
If we take ASL and NZSL as an example and refer to the data provided by McKee and Kennedy (2000), it looks like 23 out of the 100 concepts in their chosen Swadesh list have identical signs between these languages, with an additional 3 related to some degree. This gives us 26% when grouped together into possible cognates. NZSL and Auslan, on the other hand, compare much more favorably, with 77 identical and 10 related signs in the list, giving us a total of 87%.

One limitation with this type of research is that 100 words, no matter how carefully chosen, can only poorly approximate the overlap in signs between languages across much larger distributions. A better approach perhaps would be to examine a collection of more extensive, coded, and proofed corpora in each language, and look at patterns of frequency and use there instead. Another idea would be to conduct a more qualitative analysis and ask signers from different countries what they think. I've read that there are some projects currently in progress that may lead to this type of further research in the area.

Another issue is that a lot of sign language incorporates the use of manual classifiers that are not listed in the dictionary (e.g., hand-shapes and movements indicating size, shape, and form - and that's just one simple level of classifier), as well as a combination of sophisticated non-manual features (e.g., head tilt, eyebrow raises, and eye and mouth shapes or movements). It may often be possible to best-guess many of these classifiers and features from context and their similarity to real-world items and familiar gestures, especially where cultures share a lot in common. But then again, these signs are also highly variable from person to person and from place to place within a country (much like many languages), which means that there are unique idiolects between signers and communities with regards to overall style, localized signs, and vernacular syntax. Whilst learning NZSL, I often have to learn several different signs for a single concept, as well as keep alert to the various (and sometimes radically different and changing) styles used by different signers.

All of this makes it difficult to separate dialects from related languages, and points to a greater need for examining diversity and linguistic development both within languages and between languages, as well as a need to consult with various deaf communities as to how they regard their own language and other historically related languages in the same language family. I think it's great that New Zealand has recognized NZSL as an official language for the last decade (i.e., since 2006), along with English, and Māori (since 1987), and I keep my fingers crossed that others will follow in New Zealand's footsteps with regards to their own indigenous languages (both spoken and signed).
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Re: Ka upane! 2017 (NZSL ☾, Hawaiian ☾, Russian ☉)

Postby Teango » Thu Feb 23, 2017 11:45 pm

@vogeltje
It's pretty much the same for me here too with regards to Spanish and Portuguese, Euleküken! I can read posts and watch movies with subs in Portuguese to a surprisingly useful degree, but am totally lost when it comes to listening without text. In a way, I feel much the same when it comes to the divergence between French literature and spoken dialogue in contemporary French tv series. ;)

Once my level has improved a lot more in NZSL, I might try to watch a short video in each of the BANZSL sign languages (as well as ASL out of sheer curiosity) and report back here in one of my posts. It might be a while before I reach that exulted level in NZSL though...
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