SignWriting in Denmark - politics again!

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
April 13, 2006

Everyone, and Shane -
Did you know that Asger Bergman's Deaf wife, Ritva, was one of the  
best SignWriting teachers of Deaf children in Denmark in the 1980's?  
You have no idea how fabulous it was to see Ritva teach SignWriting  
to 6 and 7 year old Deaf children at the Aalborg School for the Deaf  
in Aalborg, Denmark. I know! I was there to see it. And one of Asger  
and Ritva's darling Deaf children...their Deaf son...was there in the  
classroom when I was an invited guest there...and they had signs  
written in SignWriting across the walls in the halls of the school,  
and Ritva wanted, at that time, to give them good language in BOTH  
Danish spoken language and good DSL grammar sentences too...so they  
had the SignWriting in DSL grammar in a sentence on the wall, and the  
good spoken Danish written translation underneath. I was treated like  
a royal guest, when I visited the school...one of the memories one  
never forgets...they used SignWriting in the schools until 1988, when  
the funding ran out and other politics perhaps and then they continue  
to use SignWriting, but in a different way than we do, and only for  
interpreters and research and parents of Deaf children, but  
SignWriting was in the Danish schools from 1982- 1988 for the younger  
Deaf children...but I was blessed to know both Ritva and Asger a  
little bit at that time and I really treasure the memory of being in  
their home and seeing, at that time, their darling Deaf  
children...very young and their tiny little hands signing at native  
speeds - totally wonderful! And Asger met Stefan Woehrmann last  
summer in Maastricht - smile!

It is no one's fault that things changed in Denmark...but they still  
use an old version of the system and I think, if they learn the way  
we write around the world now, they might find that Deaf children  
will learn SignWriting in Denmark again...but they need to be  
informed about the way we are all writing now...they haven't been in  
touch with me since around 1990....

As far as when the system was invented...it started in Denmark in  
Copenhagen while I was working at the University of Copenhagen...at  
that time I was not in touch with Deaf people but was asked to write  
a video of Deaf and hearing people signing...I was teaching  
DanceWriting (my invention) at the Royal Danish Ballet at the  
time...that was 1974...and it was a researcher (hearing) named Lars  
von der LIeth who asked me to transcribe the video, but he was  
against the idea of writing the language...that was my idea when I  
looked at my transcription and realized that if I worked with Deaf  
people we might have a written form for the language...I had just  
been learning to speak my second language, Danish, and I love  
languages and saw this as a possible collaboration with the Deaf  
Community...so I went to Lars to suggest this, and Lars, who is a  
lovely man, but was not on the same wave length with me, said he  
didn't think anyone would want to write sign language..he just wanted  
it for his research...so I returned home to the USA and worked with  
Deaf people and then in 1982, when we were publishing a newspaper  
written in ASL with 10 Deaf native signers in ASL here in the USA...  
I sent a copy of the SignWriter Newspaper written in ASL to Britta  
Hansen in Denmark and then she invited me to come back to Denmark to  
teach the teachers at the Deaf Center for Total Communication in  
Denmark in 1982...that is how it entered the Danish School  
System...Asger may not realize that Denmark was the first country in  
history to teach SignWriting to Deaf children, and Ritva Bergmann was  
one of the first teachers, along with Bente Sparrevohn, Annegrethe  
Pedersen (Deaf) and several others...See the names on this research  
project:

Danish School System uses SignWriting
http://www.signwriting.org/forums/research/rese002.html

Val ;-)

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On Apr 13, 2006, at 1:29 PM, Shane Gilchrist O hEorpa wrote:

> everyone,
>
> im on the BSL Tutors training course at Heriot Watt University
> (Edinburgh) where we are being trained to become trainers of BSL
> tutors in Scotland (in my case, Ireland!)
>
> this week we have a lovely lecturer called Asger Bergman who is the
> president of Danish Deaf Association and he used to work at the
> Communication Centre at Copenhagen where they train interpreters and
> do sign language trainings etc.
>
> To my surprise they still use the older form of signwriting when he
> showed us their handouts etc - they still use the arms etc - and he
> tried to dismiss it as "oh thats American" i had to disagree with him
> straight away saying that it was invented in Denmark, yes by an
> American woman but with the guidance of deaf people etc - it was the
> deaf community in Denmark who have asked Val Sutton to get involved. I
> think people were just obsessed with the fact that Val Sutton is a
> hearie - its not even important - even so if it is important, Val did
> have a team of really intelligent pro-ASL deaf people working together
> - why else did she move to La Jolla - she didnt move there just for
> the view!!! (she moved there to be close to the Salk Institute where
> they were doing a big ASL research project)
>
> It was the petty politics rearing its ugly head once more - i said
> that the Sutton System is very useful, let it be academic or not - and
> its always evolving etc - it will evolve into a better system if more
> and more people use it to a point it can be considered "normal" - he
> said that it is not used at all in the deaf schools.
>
> I forgot to mention that Carol Padden thinks Signwriting is really
> good and "cute" the bother is that its a bit too complicated for her
> (i think shes reclutant about using it as its not yet used much by the
> deaf community in the USA - that has to change!)
>
> That is something ESWO have to do something about it - we need
> something to unite Europe's deaf community - and SignWriting may be
> the way. It is important to get deaf organisations to back the SW
> system - im sure the Irish Deaf Society, the Ulster Insitute for the
> Deaf and the British Deaf Association will back this (eventually)
>
> the problem is that most people think SW is only limited to sign
> linguists - thats not even the point!
>
> Shane
>