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How To Write a Sign Language, Part 1: Logographies

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How To Write a Sign Language Part 1: Logographies Whether you are new to sign languages or a native signer who has signed your entire life - you probably haven't heard about sign language writing systems. Spoken languages around the world have writing systems so surely sign languages can too? Well, many have been tried and used in brief corners of the world but none have been widely adopted by Deaf communities. I recommend these resources if you want to learn more about all of those attempts and their histories: Sign Language Dictionary - Writing History The Hunt for The Perfect Sign Language Writing System (© 2025 Zrajm) But in this mini-series of posts I want to explain the different types there are so that you, intrepid future sign language writer, may better understand the options and pick which to learn or make. First I will cover Logographies . Logographies A logography is a writing system where a single character represents a concept, instead of a sound. Sometimes this comes...
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Gods Without A Religion – SG1's Goa'uld

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  Gods Without A Religion - SG1's Goa'uld NOTE: I do not use AI to write any of my ideas or source my images. All images were from Google/Bing images. I have tried to avoid the obviously AI ones, but some may have slipped past me. I do not endorse AI image generation. These images used to illustrate my ideas, I do not claim ownership over any of them. Spoilers for the early-mid series of SG1. I won't go into detail so don't worry about that, but I will mention a number of plot-points in passing. I have recently been rewatching Stargate SG1 with my partner. I loved the series as a child, catching the occasional episode when I stayed at my dad's, who had Sky. I never had a complete picture of the show because I had only ever seen a smattering, and completely out of order. I am pleasantly surprised that the show stands the test of time! It's remarkably well put together, with exciting ongoing plotlines and (unlike even other scifi shows I love such as Star Trek an...
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The Oxford Comma Is Pointless

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The Oxford Comma Is Pointless I hate the Oxford Comma. I hate the way it looks. I hate the way proponents of it get all high and mighty. But most of all - I hate that it...  Doesn't fix the problem it's meant to fix Contradicts the logic of commas and "and" Creates new problems Other punctuation changes fix the problem better Frames ambiguity and contextualisation as a problem, when it simply is not Claims to be necessary, when many other languages are fine without it So, lets go claim by claim. Doesn't fix the problem it's meant to fix (image found here: The 'Oxford' Comma: Why That Dumb JFK/Stalin Meme Gets It Wrong ) We invited two strippers, JFK and Stalin.   We invited two strippers, JFK, and Stalin. So this "problem" occurs because the following pattern: "Blah blah blah [plural noun] [pause] [noun 1] and [noun 2]." ... or more generally...  "Blah blah blah [plural noun] [pause] [list]." ... are common ways to introdu...
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Oligosynthetic Toki Pona

 Oligosynthetic Toki Pona toki a jan ale o! tokojanale! Linguists like to push against the idea that any two languages are more complicated than one another. This could be seen to be in conflict with Toki Pona's claim of simplicity and lack of complexity. To be fair to Toki Pona, unlike a natural language - it specifically limits both it's lexicon and grammar - thus to be artificially smaller than natural languages. However, one aspect of Toki Pona simplicity often goes un-examined: grammar simplicity. Toki Pona is maximally isolating and analytic - with zero synthesis whatsoever. This means that no new words can be formed from component parts, with all grammar being done by word order (with the help of marker particals. I want to flip this on it's head, mostly for fun, and to test the limits of this language. I want to make Toki Pona maximally synthetic, while keeping most of everything else the same. Thus the goals will be: Root word list is the same as the base language....
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RTD's Finales AREN'T just Deus Ex Machinas

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RTD's Finales AREN'T just Deus Ex Machinas   I see this criticism a lot. But I want to heavily dispute it here. First, we must talk about what a Deus Ex Machina is. Deus ex machina - Wikipedia Deus Ex Machina - Definition and Examples | LitCharts Deus ex Machina - TV Tropes Twist Ending - TV Tropes Foreshadowing - Wikipedia Chekhov's gun - Wikipedia Deus ex machina is a Latin calque from Greek ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός (apò mēkhanês theós) 'god from the machine'. The term was coined from the conventions of ancient Greek theater, where actors who were playing gods were brought on stage using a machine. The machine could be either a crane (mechane) used to lower actors from above or a riser that brought them up through a trapdoor. Aeschylus introduced the idea and it was used often to resolve the conflict and conclude the drama. The device is associated mostly with Greek tragedy, although it also appeared in comedies. [...] A deus ex machina is a plot device whereby an unsolva...
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"Alphabet"? "Syllabary"? How to categorise sign language writing systems? A Proposal.

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"Alphabet"? "Syllabary"? How to Categorise Sign Language Writing Systems? A Proposal The following article will assume the reader has a familiarity with sign languages, Deaf culture and sign language writing systems. Sources will be given where available. All of the sign language writing systems covered should be available in Zrajm's page (link below). I am in a weird nerd corner of the internet where we talk about sign language writing systems quite a bit. These are orthographies or notation systems used or proposed to write sign languages.  Another nerd in this space is collating a bunch of these sytems into a big page containing as many as possible -  Sign Language Writing (© 2025 Zrajm)  (WIP). My discussions and perusal of this list has lead me to some thoughts about how to categorise said systems. Looking at the above list, at time of writing (09/2025)  gives the following chart; This is a mixture of two separate scales - Linearity and Unicode Compatibilit...
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