Communication by sign

Title

Language

English

Year

1965

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

An effective way of overcoming language ignorance in strange lands.

Fulltext

■ An effective way of overcoming language ignor ance in strange lands. COMMUNICATION BY SIGN The roadsigns have inspir ed a very interesting attempt towards the simplification of language — the creation of a silent sign language. This initiative was taken by a United Nations committee in charge of facilitating commu nication for whatever citizen in whatever country. The signs would represent signi ficant symbols, like an ar row to represent movement, a broken glass, fragility, two crossed knives a restaurant. Already this type of signs is being used widely in cross roads where citizens of dif ferent countries meet, like international airports or the bigger airlines. The rail ways are beginning to adopt the same hieroglyphics. It is a glaring paradox that the impediment of lan guage barriers is most felt in our travel-and-communication oriented times. Short of speaking five or six prin cipal languages, it is impos sible for a citizen of any country to be able to con verse with a citizen of a dis tant country who knows on ly his native language. Ne vertheless it is some times necessary for the two to com municate. What to do then? Of course everybody knows how to express a desire to eat. But how does one say what he wants to eat, how he wants it cooked? The language of gestures is easily exhausted. How does one ask for the location of toi lets without risking embar rassment? Let us imagine a French man arriving in a small town in a Japanese province where no one speaks Euro pean languages. He leaves the train station and finds himself in a strange world. He will hardly know the way to a barber shop. And all his moves would require a great waste of time. That is why the United 22 Panorama Nations wish that the need for exchanges between coun tries, so violently demon strated since the last war, should not be frustrated by language difficulties. The objective is for all foreign ers to be able to find all their elementary needs by themselves. It would be sufficient to look at the sign boards for the needed in formation. To be sure, this kind of writing is not new. It is the same as that disco vered on the walls of pre historic caves. It was sign writing which allowed per sonal communication bet ween peoples of the old Mid dle-East civilizations and in times when the Greeks and Romans started their com mercial activities. Cicero, Cato, Plutarch and Seneca w^re among the most ardent protagonists of sign language. Alchemists of all countries communicated their formulas and discoveries only by conventional signs. Most of the chemical compounds including metals, were re presented by crudely drawn signs. Today many sciences have an international lan guage based on signs. Bio logists represent the sexes by the sign of Mars for the male and the sign of Venus for female. Electricians and electronicians have established a vo luminous code of signs and crude drawings. Atomic scientists have adopted the black, yellow or red ring with three breaks. An international symbol has been finally adopted to designate the post office — it’s the hunting horn of the Swiss post offices. The choice of symbols is an ex tremely complex work. For example, it was proposed to the United Nations to use as symbol for fragility a broken egg. After days of discus sion it was admitted that in certain communities like the polar' regions, they may not be able to understand the meaning of this broken egg sign, because they don’t eat eggs in that region. It was therefore the broken glass which was assigned to ex press the idea of fragility. We are only at the be ginning of this important re volution in the communica tion between different coun tries and continents. Dif ferent groups of specialists work simultaneously for the September 1965 23 establishment of this sign language. An International Council of Organizations for Graphic Communication is doing its best to coordinate the different researchers un dertaken here and there. The basic quality of a lan guage of signs is simplicity. The maximum of symbols should be able to be learned with the minimum of diffi culties. Hence the necessity of choosing highly significant symbols, completely devoid of ambiguity. The choice of the drawn object is not enough. It must be so de signed as to be immediately comprehensible. For exam ple, a single knife does not necessarily suggest the idea of eating and consequently, a restaurant. On the other hand, two crossed knives make one think invariably of a table service. The second arrangement was therefore retained. The vocabulary of signs will probably be definite in three months time. We will then have at our disposal in all cities, signboards of our modern hieroglyphics to help us set foot in the still in accessible regions of our own planet. SURPRISE! A friend of mine in the island of Guernsey one day settled down in a small, deserted bay to read, hidden behind a sand dune. Presently two young girls came along and seeing no one, un dressed and stretched out to sun-bathe. Soon a parson appeared carrying a camera, and believing himself alone, left his clothes on the beach and swam around the neighboring headland. Out from behind their sand dune stole the two girls to where the parson’s clothes lay, picked up his camera and each snapped a picture of the other. After which they replaced the camera con taining these candid portraits and returned to their hiding place. 24 Panorama

Media