[sw-l] Re: Country and Language Codes, and standardization with ISO

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
September 28, 2004

dparvaz at MAC.COM wrote:
> This is an easy objection, in that it costs nothing to have me make
> it, and it has the advantage of sounding almost noble (two for one!):
> Has anyone thought of including actual Deaf people -- not just one or
> two Euro(-American) ones, but a real international body? I'm sure the
> good folks of the WFD could come up with a committee to consider this
> an other proposals, and make a recommendation to ISO.-Dan.

Hello Dan and Everyone!
I wish SignWriting itself were run and invented by Deaf people too.
Darn it, I was born with hearing, but I am grateful for our Deaf DAC
members over the years, and Stuart Thiessen and his organization, and
Daniel Noelpp and other Deaf people who are involved and encourage all
of us to write signs...the world is not perfect. But I hope more and
more Deaf people will work with us...absolutely...

Meanwhile, of course anyone can submit new coding systems to the
ISO...so if the WFD would like to do that, they are welcome to do that!
Or perhaps they would first like to hear about how we are doing it
right now...maybe they wouldn't mind the codes we have right now, since
it is such a hassle to get them established by ISO committee, and since
no one is changing their languages any...we are only talking about
small codes within computers...in email headers...and I don't think the
language code sgn is so offensive...I would be curious to see what the
WFD would choose instead of sgn for sign...

Really, all these codes should be written in SignWriting in email
headers, don't you think? Throw out the Roman alphabet...smile...

Val ;-)