AW: Flying Bird

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
June 20, 2004

All three of these exist in the writing system, so I will leave it to
you....the writers and the teachers....to decide what writing styles
are best for you...I suspect that it depends on the document you are
writing, as to which version you would choose...but all of them are
technically correct...

The first one, spelling 1a, that shows the line for the thumb to the
side (really written with a line up rather than a dot)...that one
developed in writing because people didn't realize the dot
existed...the dot always existed in DanceWriting...in fact...dots are
used a great deal in other parts of Movement Writing...but because we
were trying to give people a fast way to read signs, and because the
dot is hard to write in some positions, like when the handshape is
dark...the line for the thumb was an exception that was only written
with dots by researchers and people who loved the detail...but we have
found that Deaf children read the thumb line faster than the dots...so
that is one of the reasons the thumbs became problematic...we had
different ways of writing the same position...I have no regrets, when I
see Deaf children reading so quickly and so well...some of them very
young...I figure that detailed writing can be for the same children,
when they get older and want to be language researchers too!! ;-)))



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