Lesson 1
Body Parts
First, the more Pictographic Bliss-words for body parts:
The first three Bliss-words that serve as examples of body parts in the vocabulary
available to you for your display development are eye, mouth and ear. Each of these
Bliss-words is a simplified drawing of the body part it represents. We describe these
symbols as pictographic. (They resemble the thing that they depict.)
eye
mouth
ear
The above Bliss-words are but three of many Bliss-words representing body parts. The
Bliss-words that follow below, like these, are highly pictographic (little explanation is
needed). They would be described in the AAC literature as high in transparency and
translucency. (See Resource 12 for terminology used in AAC field.)
For more information regarding Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
visit ISAAC website: www.isaac-online.org
More examples of pictographic Bliss-words:
legs and feet
nose
head
face
hair (head)
The meanings of some of the other body parts are less obvious because they are not so
highly pictographic. They are easy to remember, however, when their meaning is
explained.
Some examples:
hand
arm
muscle
body
back
bone
For hand, hold your right hand in front of you as if it were in a mit, with the back of your
hand facing you. The short line represents your thumb. The long line represents all your
fingers together (in the mit).
For arm, hold your left arm up, bent at the elbow.
For muscle, note the arm shape and the bulge for the muscle. The pointer points to the
relevant part of the symbol.
For body, think of a clown wearing a fat body costume.
For back, think of a silhouette side view of a person standing straight, facing to the right,
with feet forward. Again the pointer points to the important part of the symbol.
For bone, think of a single bone with a joint at either end, represented by the dot.
Note how the pointer can take on different positions to indicate hair, muscle, and back.
The pointer can be turned in any direction to indicate the position and location required.
pointers
Here are more examples of the pointer being used:
hand
finger
side body
leg
thumb
neck body
foot
wrist
shoulder
hip
elbow
buttocks
stomach
heel
genitals
chest
toe
waist
knee
ankle
For more body parts and further examples of the pointer being used, see Resource 1. It
shows pages from Blissymbols for Use from “The Body” section.
There you will find two body parts that use an indicator to depict their meaning.
Find brain and heart. You will note that they each have a small square above them.
feeling
heart
mind
brain
These four Bliss-words are examples of ideographic symbols. The heart shape can be
associated with feeling and the physical heart. The shape of the top of the head can be
associated with the mind and brain.
This small square appearing over a Bliss-word changes the meaning from an abstract
meaning (e.g., feeling, mind) to a concrete meaning (e.g., heart, brain). It is called the
thing indicator. The shape is determined by the shape of the Bliss-word for thing (a small
square.) This shape is an example of an arbitrary symbol, designated to have the
meaning of thing and represent concrete meanings by Mr. Bliss. The thing indicator is
not used often but it provides a valuable function within the vocabulary on the few times
it appears. Note the positioning of the thing indicator. It has a special location above the
symbol it is defining.
Here are the lines that guide the positioning of Blissymbols:
heart
brain
Indicator Line……………………………………………………………………
Skyline …………………………………………………………………………..
Midline ………………………………………………………………………….
Earthline …………………………………………………………………………
For further information on the positioning of all indicators, go to Resource 15. There you
will learn about the lines that guide the drawing of Blissymbols. You only need to do this
reading when you are about to write some Bliss-words. When you draw symbols it is
helpful to know about the earth line, the mid-line, the sky line and the indicator line.
They will all be explained in Resource 15.
Without the indicator, the same shape has a different meaning.
Thus, the Bliss-words for heart and feeling are both represented by the heart shape. But
the thing indicator, when added to the symbol for feeling, changes the meaning to heart.
Similarly, the mind and brain are both represented by the half circle. But the thing
indicator, when added to the half circle, changes the meaning to brain.
For more examples of Bliss-words that have the thing indicator, see Resource 2.
Some Bliss-words representing body parts require two Bliss-characters. They provide an
example of how Bliss-words can be spelled by sequencing Bliss-characters. The spelling
provides the meaning of the new Bliss-word. To know the meaning, one needs to know
the meaning of each Bliss-character in the Bliss-word.
The following are the characters that are needed to “spell” two other body parts.
See if you can guess the Bliss words that are spelled with:
life
fluid
and
body
protection
and with
and
The words are:
skin
and
I hope you were able to easily “read” your first two-character Bliss-words!
New learners should find it easy to read Bliss-words if the way in which each character
represents meaning (rather than sound) is explained. Just think of all the knowledge of
letter sounds you would need to know in order to read the words “blood” and “skin”. But
with Blissymbolics, you just need to know the Bliss-words for fluid, life, protection, body.
And there are easy ways to remember Bliss-characters.
It is easy to read the Bliss-word for blood when one knows it is spelled by the Blisscharacter for fluid (which looks like the waves of water) and the Bliss-character for life
which can be explained by learning its “derivation”. (“Life” is composed of the upright
person and the sun - with the explanation that humans are able to live because they are
sustained by the energy of the sun). Blood is the fluid within our body which enables us
to live.
The Bliss-word for skin is spelled by the Bliss-characters for protection (the shape of the
roof of a house) and body (the shape of the trunk of our body). Skin is the protective
covering for the body.
Note:
Having one shape represent several English words (as is the case with fluid, liquid and
water) can be very valuable in conversation face-to-face with a Bliss-user. The Bliss user
can point to a Bliss-word and their partner can give them the alternative meanings to
choose from. Or the context can help the partner know which meaning is appropriate. In
effect, the Blissymbol represents a meaning which can have several English (or other
language) words associated with it. When Blissymbols are used with voice output
technology, this feature can be problematic. Not all words associated with the specific
Blissymbol will be appropriate in all situations. A strategy has been developed to
overcome this problem. (Read about the colon strategy in Resource 8). Technology can
also address this problem by presenting to the user the options to choose from.
Your display
When you begin your display in Lesson 3, you will learn where to locate the Bliss-words
for some of the nouns presented in Lesson 1. Those that are available for you are: arm,
back, blood, body, bone, brain, ear, eye, face, hair, head, heart, legs and feet, mind,
mouth, muscle, skin, toe. In planning your display, you will want to think about how you
will arrange these body parts so that you will be able to find them easily.
Review
You can now try Lesson 1 Quiz as a reminder of the information that has been
introduced in Lesson 1.Follow the instructions you find there. If you have problems, send
your Bliss Tutor an email message.