History Discussions: Portugal 1972 - Portugal 2004!

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
May 12, 2004

Dear SW List Members:
I have received two requests for an expanded history on SignWriting
lately...one from a List member, and another from a newspaper for sign
language...called the SigNews...They have asked me to write an article
on it, but I have not gotten to it...Sooo, I thought I would answer our
List member's questions to the SignWriting List today, since some of
the history may be interesting to you all, too...and this may help me
develop the article for SigNews...

Portugal 1972 - Portugal 2004!
This is really ironic!....In 1972, I was supposed to have performed in
a big ballet performance, in Estoril, Portugal (I was working in the
professional ballet world). While I was rehearsing, my immune system
disorder made it impossible for me to perform...(this was an ongoing
problem, and that was why I stopped dancing)...but...that was a good
thing, because it led to the development of DanceWriting, which later
led to the development of SignWriting...So Portugal played a role in
the writing system's development...

Because I could not dance in the rehearsals, I wrote them in
DanceWriting instead. A year later, our first textbook on DanceWriting
was published, and it has a direct link to the work I did with dancers
in Portugal.

Now, this month, on May 30, software developers and SignWriting users
are coming together to meet in Lisbon, Portugal, at a special one-day
workshop/conference on software development for signed languages.
SignWriting is used in several of the projects being presented on May
30...projects from around the world, including Brazil, Greece, Belgium,
Switzerland and Norway.

If someone had told me this in 1972, while I was writing dances in
Portugal, that in the year 2004 the writing system would write signed
languages in computers, in Lisbon Portugal... of course I could not
imagine it!

SignWriting didn't start until 1974, and I had no clue in 1972 that I
would ever be working with signed languages...

Would you all like to see some of the documents that I wrote at that
time? I can scan them in and show them to you....

Plus I can show you some of the earliest documents in SignWriting, if
you would like...from 1974-1975...

....to be continued...

Val ;-)