Dactylology

The elements of the fingerprint are similar to the letters of the written language.

Dactyls (letters from the dactyl alphabet) - various positions of the fingers reproduce characters functionally similar to the alphabetic alphabet; and in outline, many of them vaguely resemble letters of a printed font (in particular, “o”, “m”, “g”, “w”). Each position of the fingers in this case means a letter.

The process of communication on dactyl (dactylology) occurs in such a way that the speaker shows letters on the dactyl, and the perceiver monitors the movement of the hand visually. If a person’s vision does not allow him to see the signs, and he perceives them compulsively, then this communication is called dactyl-contact speech (DKR) ^[1] . If, when communicating with deaf-blind people in the palm of another person's fingers, the outline of the letters is reproduced with fingers, then this is not fingerprinting, but a letter in the palm of your hand , or the so-called dermography . It is used if the speaker does not have a special alphabet.

Currently, there are more than 40 such alphabets and systems in the world. The number of characters in the “finger alphabet” depends on the characters in the language alphabet, although they are not always equal. In Russia, for example, 30 characters transmit 33 letters of the Cyrillic alphabet. In China, 30 characters convey the phonetic alphabet "pinyin" , which is used in our time.

Although finger alphabets can be a fairly acceptable means of communication, not one of them provides for capital letters, punctuation, or a space between words. The use of such alphabets is also limited in terms of the transfer of names and names, foreign words and words expressing emotions; if both interlocutors do not know well what is being discussed.

When using dactylology, mastery of the written norms of speech is greatly facilitated. Dactyl language learned by children can be used as the first speech form (before mastering the oral and written forms of speech). It can be used as the main means of teaching verbal speech in specialized educational institutions. In high school, these institutions are less common.

Dactyl and speech cued speech

In dactylic speech, adhere to traditional spelling standards. In the speech system, that is, during visual reading from the lips, the speaker speaks with his hands to the interlocutor auxiliary signs that help the deaf to catch the visually difficult to distinguish between voiced and deaf (r - c; d - t; b - p, etc.), hard and soft (t - t, s - s, etc.) sounds (for example, a brush lying on the chest means sonorous, and remote from the chest - a dull sound).

One-handed and two-handed

Most finger alphabets use one hand. It is believed that this is "more convenient", since the second hand is free for other actions. However, there are systems where two hands are used (for example, in the languages of the British Sign Language family ) - British , Australian , New Zealand . The earliest mention of a two-hand alphabet is found in the book “Didaskalokofus, or the Guide for the Deaf and Dumb People” (1680). Among the subsequently emerging systems using two hands was Digiti-Lingua (1698). The modern two-finger finger alphabet is believed to be derived from one of the versions of Digital Lingua.

• Sign languages
• Russian fingerprint alphabet
• Armenian dactyl alphabet
• Fingerprints of world languages ​​on surdoserver and deafnet