Questions from Minneapolis, Minnesota...

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
May 29, 2003

On Tuesday, May 20, 2003, Kay wrote:
> I am interested in learning more about sign writing. Could you tell me
> if
> anyone, a round the Minneapolis, MN area is using sign writing. Is sign
> writing still in the research stage? Is it being used anywhere in the
> public
> domain? If it is out there, who is reading it? So many of the deaf
> people I
> know do not know anything about it. I am in a non-profit organization
> now.
> How can I put something together to convince people to have some of the
> literature we have, translated into sign writing.This whole sign
> writing
> sounds great, but will adult deaf people that know ASL be able to read
> the
> sign writing.  Thank you for your time, Kay


Hello Everyone, and Key -
Thanks for this message. Yes... SignWriting is very much in the public
domain, and is used freely in at least 27 countries by hundreds of
people...And yes, it is also in the research world...because reading
and writing signed languages requires a new focus on grammar and issues
of how to write languages that were never written before...

So SignWriting has one foot in the research world, and the other foot
in the practical everyday world...and we are all trying to find a
balance between the two worlds!

Even though people have said in the past that signed languages "should
be written too", that does not mean that our society is setup for that
reality. Generally it takes a long time for new ideas to become
established in schools systems, for example. So of course Deaf adults
today, never learned SignWriting in their school years, so they are as
new to the idea as anyone else...

I do not know of anyone specifically working with SignWriitng in
Minneapolis, but I am sure there are some, only because SignWriitng is
free on the internet, so anyone can access the materials freely and
learn on their own. SignWriting is used in the Albuquerque Public
Schools, spearheaded by researcher Dr. Cecilia Flood, who just
completed her dissertation on SignWriting in the schools, last
December. She is now a Ph.D because of her pioneering research, and
more teachers are using SignWriitng with their deaf students in
Albuquerque.

How fast do people learn to read SignWriting? If they are Deaf, and
know ASL already - very fast - give them a half-hour to adjust to the
idea, and oftentimes they are reading. Writing is slower however, and
takes real training...but reading is very visual and fast for those who
know how to sign...

We do have written SignWriting literature, plus we need more. Want to
help? I am starting a SignWriting Literature Database in the next year,
which will work inside SignBank software, and will have volumes of
literature in SignWriting from different countries. So the more
literature written, the better!

Val ;-)