
The Lost Sign Language of Sawmill Workers - curtis
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-lost-secret-sign-language-of-sawmill-workers
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djcapelis
This type of thing makes a lot of sense! My friend and I developed a small set
of hand signals in a day while working on a project in the desert with high
winds that made radios all but useless. We worked together all through the day
always at about a distance of 150ft carefully taking linked measurements and
barely used words. We also grew other types of standards, like specific things
left on/in the ground at the various points so we could communicate enough
information to make the measurements accurate.

We didn't develop any jokes or casual language, but I imagine if we had been
out there for a few more days it would have happened pretty quickly.

~~~
revscat
You might consider contacting the author. I imagine that someone would be
interested to hear the details of your signals.

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protomyth
Its truly amazing to me how many places come up with their own version of a
language in day to day business. This is one of the extreme version, but I
guess when you have to deal with horrible conditions for normal communication
you make do.

I worked at place that used to have teletypes between locations and paid per
letter. They developed a set of abbreviations that survived well into the
e-mail era[1]. Every place at least has a lingo to explain specific concepts
and procedures in the business.

This is one reason I am very interested in DSLs, dialects in languages like
Red and REBOL, and speech acts in agent literature. It seems like a more
natural fit with business to developer communication than API calls.

1) I wrote a perl program to translate at one point in some frustration.

~~~
emdd
Hey, I did my MA thesis on Soeech Act Theory!

~~~
tangled_zans
Do you agree with Searle's classification of speech acts into five different
types? Or would you use a different way to classify them?

~~~
emdd
I find taxonomy useful, but I think Derrida is right that Searle was more
preoccupied making SAT (and language in general) into a mathematical formula
than the "art" of language. I think the only really crucial elements are: \-
locutions \- illocution (act/force and [or vs] intent) \- perlocution
(act/force and [or vs] intent)

I find very little use teaching or using the 5 categories of Searle for
interpretation of verbal or written speech acts.

I find studying a locution from illocutionary intent or perlocutionary intent
more useful than Assertive, Directive, etc.

Hope it made sense and it was a useful answer! I still find it a fascinating
field that is under-utilized because people try to make it into a programming
language (a la Searle) instead of a way to understand semantics and semantic
intent.

~~~
tangled_zans
Thank you for your insights, this has been useful! (I was actually hoping to
ask this to a linguist for some time now, so I was happy when I saw your
message!)

You surmised my current situation well, I've been focusing a lot on the 5
categories and little on the locutions. I shall remedy that :)

One thing in your answer that I'm a bit fuzzy on is what you meant by the
confusing thing in the brackets (act/force and [or vs] intent)?

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sandworm101
>>>>"They could talk about their wives, cars, and colleagues. They could tell
jokes and comment on what was going on around them without their bosses every
knowing"

These mills were in the pacific northwest (Oregon, Washington and British
Columbia). That isn't 18th century england with longstanding social classes.
The "bosses" out west, the ones in the mills, weren't posh boys who never
mixed with the workers. I cannot believe that supervisors and management
wouldn't pick up on these signs very quickly and probably used them
themselves.

~~~
sverige
Well, there's still the labor / management divide. I doubt they mixed
socially, which is probably where the workers worked out the signs in detail,
over beers. Also, the bosses weren't always out on the floor, especially the
big bosses. They were in the office where it's quieter, so they had no reason
to learn the language in order to do their jobs.

~~~
kqr
"Would you get Andrew into my office, please?" is a great way of not having to
communicate on the noisy floor.

~~~
djcapelis
Yeah but everyone already knows what that one looks like. It's someone
pointing at you and gesturing for you to get over there. Also if you're a
supervisor in a sawmill, you probably don't ask someone working on the floor
in a sawmill to go hunt someone down for you. You either do it yourself or
send someone from the office to do it. The people on the floor have better
shit to do.

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jdietrich
In the weaving sheds and cotton mills of Lancashire, workers developed an
exaggerated form of speech and gesture called mee-mawing to facilitate lip-
reading.

[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=f6fQAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA37&lpg...](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=f6fQAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=mee-
maw+weaving&source=bl&ots=yMnVEU9jiy&sig=mncms_7m4AKnokLIq1awqQxxz-g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiovpCHuonNAhVkDMAKHQvBDgIQ6AEIKDAD#v=onepage&q=mee-
maw%20weaving&f=false)

~~~
voltagex_
Looks like that book/page might be unavailable outside of the UK.

~~~
ante_annum
s/.co.uk/.com and you're good

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CarolineW
Does anyone else get the sense that there is an increasing number of spelling
errors and typos in otherwise excellent articles produced by otherwise
excellent publications? Most are small and trivial, and exactly what would get
past a spell-checker, but not a capable proof reader.

For example:

    
    
        > ... without their
        > bosses every knowing.
                 ^^^^^
    

I'll have to start making a note of every article I read and see just how many
do have such errors - it might just be selection bias.

~~~
nkrisc
It's just lean journalism. Release and iterate!

~~~
CarolineW
I see it's been fixed. Clearly a case of let your readers find your errors,
just as some people release software and let their users find the bugs.

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Animats
Railroad workers have a sign language, but it's intended for use with lanterns
at night and at considerable distances, so it's all big movements.[1] It's
much reduced from what it used to be; the remaining signals are mostly "stop"
and "go" level. But there used to be enough expressive power to say "cut off
the the last three cars". This was how engine drivers and brakemen coordinated
freight switching. Today, you'll still see simple hand signals, but anything
complicated goes over two-way radios.

[1]
[http://www.rgusrail.com/manual/baker_fpi_1/baker_fpi_1.pdf](http://www.rgusrail.com/manual/baker_fpi_1/baker_fpi_1.pdf)

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snowwindwaves
Not only is it lost potentially due to increased automation but also because
we no longer process our forestry products locally, whole logs get shipped to
China so we can buy them back in the form of various goods.

Pretty sad to see so many industries cut out at the knees so the forestry
company makes a few extra bucks

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I thought they just got exported 200 miles offshore to floating sawmills run
by the Japanese?

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givan
The medium shapes/creates the language, in piraha language there are no words
for numbers or colors
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcOuBggle4Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcOuBggle4Y)

~~~
dfc
I dont think medium is the word you wanted. What is it about the "medium"
(which I am assuming is 'air' since it is a spoken language) of piraha
language that has shaped/created a language without numbers/colors despite the
fact that english has colors and numbers?

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panglott
Pirahã has several different channels, such as whistle speech, hum speech,
musical speech, yell speech, &c.
[http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003175.h...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003175.html)

The Pirahã also have an unusual counting system (none).
[http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001364.h...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001364.html)
...but this cuts against the argument that the medium very much influences the
message.

I've heard the argument that some of these channels may be influenced by the
jungle environment (whistled language elsewhere is frequently used outdoors
because whistles carry farther). And I think whistled or musical speech is
likelier to occur in tonal languages with a simple phonology (Pirahã's is very
simple and very tonal). Dan Everett's claim was that a cultural avoidance of
indirect references influenced the grammar of Pirahã (to put it crudely).

~~~
dfc
All of these "channels" are just different ways of making sounds. Call them
whatever you want they still use the same medium.

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sloanesturz
I wonder if this type of nonverbal communication is still prevalent in the
large, noisy factories and sweatshops of the developing world! This would be
an incredible research project.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I learnt BSL (British Sign Language) with my then girlfriend whilst at uni. We
used it to chat in the library, talk to each other across the room anywhere it
was too busy or inappropriate to shout - very useful.

Given the access to information nowadays i imagine people would be more likely
to learn an established sign language due to its wider use. That said we
developed our own simplified signs for BSL to communicate with our babies,
which quickly became adapted by them, so even this way I feel slangs would
develop readily.

~~~
imglorp
I once saw some people having a conversation between moving subway trains on
different tracks. Awesome!

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yitchelle
Interesting article, thanks for sharing.

I also remember watching the documentary on trading on floor of the stock
market and amazed in the hand signs used there as well. It even has a name,
Open Outcry, but this includes shouting as well.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_outcry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_outcry)

~~~
jgranby
The other one I'm reminded of is Tic-tac, the bookmakers' sign language that
John McCririck helped to bring to popular attention on Channel 4 Racing in the
UK.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic-tac](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic-tac)

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internaut
Everybody should watch Ben's Mill.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2KJbRHO76s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2KJbRHO76s)

It has the most photogenic cows I've ever seen. It's an old documentary about
a water mill powering a lumber operation.

This is how the industrial revolution began. Cogs and wheels!

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kleiba
This headline is such an invitation for a cruel "chopped off all fingers"
joke.

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brendoncrawford
Within the sport of surfing, some groups of friends might sometimes have their
own small set of hand signs for communicating when verbal communication is not
always possible out in the ocean.

