[Sw-l] 2-D SignWriting Font and Sign Language Wikipedia projects

[Stephen Slevinski]

Hi SignWriting List,

Valerie Sutton's non-profit, the Center for Sutton Movement Writing, is 
applying for a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation and we'd like your 
help.  We have 2 weeks to demonstrate that there is significant interest 
for sign language Wikipedia and Wiktionary projects.  The community 
review ends April 4th.

The grant write-up is available online:
* 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/slevinski/ASL_Wikipedia_2-D_Font_Development_for_SignWriting

Part of the grant process includes showing that there is community 
support for the ideas and purpose of the grant.  We need individuals and 
groups to endorse our grant proposal.  The endorsements can be written 
directly on the grant page linked above.  Alternatively, the 
endorsements can be sent to this list or privately in email.

The main purpose of the grant is to improve the technology available for 
the sign language Wikipedia and Wiktionary projects.  We need to show 
that there is interest in the sign language Wikipedia and Wiktionary 
projects.

The grant is for the construction of a true 2-D font for SignWriting.  
Our current fonts only deal with the individual symbols of SignWriting 
and require SVG to arrange the sign images in 2 dimensions.  The new 
font will add the 2-dimensional arrangement directly to the font 
rendering layer, the same as other script fonts.

The grant includes a supplemental Unicode proposal for 17 additional 
characters.  Building on the already accepted 672 Unicode characters for 
SignWriting, the new characters will make it possible to fully define a 
sign as a pure string of Unicode characters.  The new 2-D font will use 
these Unicode strings to display SignWriting.

The great benefit of full Unicode strings is that we will be able to 
display SignWriting in any software and on any website.  We will be able 
to freely copy-and-paste between websites and software without having to 
create custom plugins or extensions. The new 2-D font will definitely 
benefit the Wikimedia projects, but it will also benefit the entire 
SignWriting community.

So if you would like to help, please endorse the grant on the link above 
or through email.  If you could pass this request along to anyone else 
who might be interested, that would be appreciated.

Regards,
-Stephen E Slevinski Jr

________________________________________________


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sutton at signwriting.org

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