<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">SignWriting List<div>July 30, 2011</div><div><br></div><div>Have you all seen this section of a larger article on "Sign Language" in the English Wikipedia? It is a good write-up on the topic:</div><div><br></div><div>this is a section in the middle of the article on "Sign language"...</div><div><br></div><div>Go to:</div><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_language#Written_forms_of_sign_languages">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_language#Written_forms_of_sign_languages</a></div><div><h3><span class="mw-headline" id="Written_forms_of_sign_languages">Written forms of sign languages</span></h3><p>Sign language differs from oral language in its relation to writing. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoneme" title="Phoneme">phonemic</a> systems of oral languages are primarily <i>sequential</i>:
that is, the majority of phonemes are produced in a sequence one after
another, although many languages also have non-sequential aspects such
as tone. As a consequence, traditional phonemic writing systems are also
sequential, with at best <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diacritic" title="Diacritic">diacritics</a> for non-sequential aspects such as stress and tone.</p><p>Sign languages have a higher non-sequential component, with many
"phonemes" produced simultaneously. For example, signs may involve
fingers, hands, and face moving simultaneously, or the two hands moving
in different directions. Most writing systems have not been designed to
deal accurately with this level of complexity, although the Sutton
SignWriting script has succeeded.</p><p>In those few countries with good educational opportunities available
to the deaf, many deaf signers can read and write the oral language of
their country at a level sufficient to consider them as "functionally
literate." However, in many countries, deaf education is very poor and /
or very limited. As a consequence, most deaf people have very little to
no literacy in their country's spoken language. There are Deaf people
who do not see a need to write their own language.<sup id="cite_ref-27" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_language#cite_note-27"><span>[</span>28<span>]</span></a></sup></p><p>However, there are some scripts for sign languages, with one in particular being used in 40 countries (Sutton SignWriting). <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SignWriting" title="SignWriting">SignWriting</a>,
developed by Valerie Sutton in 1974, is a practical and by far the most
popular system for recording the movements of ASL as well as any signed
language around the world. Volumes of written ASL have been recorded to
date [<a href="http://www.signwriting.org">www.signwriting.org</a>]. The SignWriting script can be used for
detailed research, daily use as well as shorthand. SignWriting has
adequate means of handling <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouthing" title="Mouthing">mouthing</a>, facial expression and dynamics of movement. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokoe_notation" title="Stokoe notation">Stokoe notation</a>, devised by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dr._William_Stokoe&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Dr. William Stokoe (page does not exist)">Dr. William Stokoe</a> for his 1965 <i>Dictionary of American Sign Language</i>is an abstract <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic" title="Phonemic" class="mw-redirect">phonemic</a> alphabet. Designed specifically for ASL, it is limited in that it has no way of expressing facial expression. The more recent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASL-phabet" title="ASL-phabet">ASL-phabet</a> is a minimal derivative of Stokoe along the lines of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand" title="Shorthand">shorthand</a>. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg_Notation_System" title="Hamburg Notation System">Hamburg Notation System</a>
(HamNoSys), developed within the last several years, is a detailed
phonetic system, not designed for any one sign language, and intended as
a transcription system for researchers rather than as a practical
script.</p><p>These systems are based on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconic" title="Iconic" class="mw-redirect">iconic</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol" title="Symbol">symbols</a>. Some are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictograph" title="Pictograph" class="mw-redirect">pictographic</a>, being conventionalized pictures of the hands, face, and body; others, such as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokoe_notation" title="Stokoe notation">Stokoe notation</a>,
are more iconic. Stokoe used letters of the Latin alphabet and Arabic
numerals to indicate the handshapes used in fingerspelling, such as 'A'
for a closed fist, 'B' for a flat hand, and '5' for a spread hand; but
non-alphabetic symbols for location and movement, such as '[]' for the
trunk of the body, '×' for contact, and '^' for an upward movement.
David J. Peterson has attempted to create a phonetic transcription
system for signing that is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII" title="ASCII">ASCII</a>-friendly known as the <a href="http://dedalvs.free.fr/slipa.html" class="external text" rel="nofollow">Sign Language International Phonetic Alphabet (SLIPA)</a>.</p><p>SignWriting, being pictographic, is able to represent simultaneous
elements in a single sign. The Stokoe notation, on the other hand, is
sequential, with a conventionalized order of a symbol for the location
of the sign, then one for the hand shape, and finally one (or more) for
the movement. The orientation of the hand is indicated with an optional
diacritic before the hand shape. When two movements occur
simultaneously, they are written one atop the other; when sequential,
they are written one after the other. Neither the Stokoe nor HamNoSys
scripts are designed to represent facial expressions or non-manual
movements, both of which SignWriting accommodates easily.</p></div></body></html>