The art and science of Glossing with PUDL

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
April 5, 2004

Dear SW List, and Pastor Dettloff at the Deaf Church in Michigan -
What a wonderful statement below. That is so true. I remember you told
me that your Deaf congregation is using SignWriting in Bible studies,
to learn the Bible...? Of course glossing is helpful, and no one is
asking anyone to stop that...especially me...If it works, it works!

Sometimes people assume that SignWriting was developed for "one way of
teaching"...I think they assume that it is a philosophy...but actually
SignWriting wasn't originally developed for teaching at all...It was
developed to write any movement...with the hopes that someday the
visual nature of signed languages can be captured on paper...with or
without gloss! smile...I didn't know what a gloss was, when I started
writing Danish signs in the 1970's...

The fact that your Deaf congregation, Ron, is learning the Bible
because of SignWriting...that really means a lot...because it shows
that it is no longer just a dream, but has reached everyday practical
use...

Val ;-)

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Ronald Dettloff in Michigan wrote:
> At our church we regularly use both: glossing and sw without glossing.
> Visually and linguistically I find non glossing superior but 100
> percent of
> the Deaf people in our church want glossing, probably because it helps
> them
> figure out the sw since they do not use it everyday. Also glossing is
> necessary for looking up works in the dictionary. Purists don't even
> like SW
> just like they don't like glossing. Practical people just want to
> improve
> the situation. SW with glossing has helped a lot of people. People
> cannot be
> changed over night.
>
> Pastor Ron and Judy Dettloff
> Home of the SignBible -   http://cyberjer.com/signbibl/index.htm
> Write me: signpreach at hotmail.com