Today I finally managed to write-up the rest of the text for my outcome. This is the text I have used on the Braille page, the sign language page, the sheet music page and the “How We Greet Each Other” page.
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Sign language is a kind of language used by deaf people and people who cannot speak. It involves the movement of hands, body and facial expressions to communicate. There are many versions of sign language all around the world just like there are many different spoken languages. A common mistake that some people make is to assume that all sign language is the same when it is not, although there is the pidgin International Sign. But just as each country has their own spoken language they will also have their own sign language. There are many sign languages in the world as the 2013 edition of Ethnologue shows when it listed that there are currently 137 different forms.
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Braille is the language that blind and visually impaired people use to read. It is a series of embossed dots on paper that correspond to letters of the English alphabet. It is named after its creator Louis Braille from France who went blind after an accident in his childhood. When he was 15 he developed his own code for the French alphabet, which he then published in 1829.
As you may have noticed, Braille is a kind of language using small rectangular blocks (of which are called “cells”) containing little bumps (of which are known as “raised dots”). The amount of dots and how many of them there are make them represent different letters. Just like there are different languages there are also different forms of Braille varying from country to country. In English Braille there are three different levels known as Grade 1, Grade 2 and Grade 3, which start with Grade 1 being a letter-by-letter version used for basic literacy and end with Grade 3, which involves different non-standardized personal shorthands.
In the modern world there are many different things that use Braille such as screen-reading software, embossed paper, refreshable Braille displays, something known as a slate and stylus (one of the first things that helped blind & visually impaired people to read), there is also a Braille writer, a portable Braille note-taker or a Braille embosser (a printer that prints embossed paper from a computer). A good understanding of Braille literacy has been shown to correlate with high employment rates.
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Music is something that we hear just like when someone is speaking to us and music notes on a paper can be seen as a form of language to those who understand music fluently as they correspond to notes on an instrument. Just like how we hear words we can also hear music, which allows us to sort-of see music as a kind of language. When someone is angry and yelling we can understand that just how we can understand loud and angry sounding music. Music gives us a feeling just as words do and we respond in our own way to that. A sung lullaby can just be as calming as a soft wordless piano lullaby.
This example of sheet music can be read by some but not by others, just like we can read some forms of writing but not others (just like the “How we Communicate” page). In terms of the QR code and the YouTube link they are exactly the same, the same but different, each one leads to the same place but they are in different forms, one we can read for ourselves, another that we need a device to read.
To hear this song played by Yiruma visit this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBH0JqGaqHs or use the QR code.
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Kissing the cheek
One of the most common greetings, it has become the most common in places like Europe and Latin America.
Salute
This gesture has been used for centuries from the Romans to our modern day military forces. The salute is used to show respect to higher authorities.
Bowing
Used in many Asian cultures but also sometimes Europe. The bow can involve actions from lowering the torso and head or just nodding the head.
Handshake
Used almost all over the world, this gesture has been traced back and has been depicted being used by Greek gods and goddesses such as Hera and Athena.
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With both the sign language and the Braille text I used Wikipedia to help me gather facts about it (as before I did not realize that sign language was different in different countries and other such facts).
With my writing for the music sheet page I wrote it from how I felt that music was a language as oppose to knowing that Braille and sign language was a form of communication. I wrote it so that people may understand how music is a form of language just like Braille and sign language is.
With the greetings I used Wikipedia to help me research the different greetings, I originally also had waving as a fifth greeting, but then when trying to get a good layout I decided to get rid of it because it caused too much trouble when trying to make a good-looking layout. It is also a very common greeting that may seem obvious to most people so I decided to not include it in my final outcome.
According to Microsoft Word I have 690 words on my outcome (not including the front page and titles and the How we communicate “Hello” page).