h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Some day, perhaps.

In the meantime, have you seen http://www.omniglot.com/writing/signwriting.htm. The fancy colours in the text are not actually necessary, but they are nice.

TRiG.

I don't know how what I said managed to infer that sign language doesn't have grammar rules. All I said was that I assumed a uniform, national sign language came along later than verbal language and as such someone may have thought that being a small community in each nation, having deaf people from around the world being able to communicate might be a good idea.

I suppose in retrospect many deaf people, through sign language and reading, have acquired grammar rules already but seeing as you learn sign language actively rather than instinctively (it's less common to acquire it the same way you would a verbal language because that's being spoken around you) then surely new grammar rules can be tought in the same way you're taught them when learning a foreign verbal language.

I don't know why anyone with a brain would think sign language isn't a real language - could see their point with Esperantan, but not sign language :p

Well then, that was certainly interesting.

Life has been quite busy so I haven't been able to report, but the exam went okay, I think. It wasn't precisely hunky-dory, but it wasn't bad - and since it's now the requisite 48 hours afterward, I suppose I can talk about the free response section (I signed a legal document that I would never disclose the contents of the multiple-choice questions...<rollseyes&gt

But yeah. The listening went much as usual, but I nearly ran out of time on the reading comprehension (usually I finish ~15 minutes early) and at the instant time was called realized I'd put a wrong answer. But that would be just one question out of 85, so I'm not too concerned. Then we had a break, and the free response. I feel good about the verbs, less so about the function word fill-ins - that's pretty much as normal. The essay was about succeeding at life, and what that meant for you - I talked about becoming a writer and how I wanted to do that not only because I like to express myself in words but because it's the proverbial road less travelled. Then was the speaking, which I really think I did a lot better on than usual. I'm very self-conscious about my French speaking, because my accent is poor and I haven't had much experience speaking, so I don't practice very much in front of people, and that's largely why I was worried. But I answered all the questions pretty suitably, and I didn't trail off and speak in fragments like I usually do. I ran out of time on the first question, describing a story related in a series of pictures, so in the second question - "Describe a time when you were disappointed or frustrated" - I described the time when I ran out of time on the first question of the speaking portion of the AP French test. Well, I thought it was clever, anyway.

So yeah. That's the story. I'm just glad it's over... now I've got American History, Biology and English Language - then I'll be done for this year.

I'm a big fan of omniglot - to the extent of having correponed with it's owner.

>>Now...the trick I've learnt with French - and a greater extent with German, is to *perform* the language, as though you were spoofing a stereotypical native speaker. To you, it will feel like you're taking the piss. But to them, it will sound normal.

(My other big breakthrough in spoken German was to sop worrying too much about gender and case endings. Mumble something non-commital and chances are you'll be understood.)