[sw-l] UK...Article in Deaf Magazine needs comments

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
April 28, 2005

Here are few side comments, Cathy...Not for you to add to your writing, 
but just for everyone's information....about the other systems...but 
don't put these comments in your article...not necessary!

Thanks for doing such a great job!! ;-)

> Cathy wrote....
> But then came SignWriting. While it is not the first system for 
> recording movements (other systems being Stokoe, SignFont and 
> HamNoSys)

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Historic Note from Val...
SignWriting is the second one historically in your listing of four 
notation systems above....and the systems above do not all record 
movements...SignWriting is the ONLY one that comes from a Movement 
Notation system...the other three are called linguistically-based 
notation systems...they are not real writing systems...they were 
developed as a way to jot down linguistic components of signs, but they 
are not designed to write Sign Language literature in sentences to be 
used daily by Deaf children and adults...SignWriting is the only one 
that is developed specifically to be a written form for signed 
languages used on a daily basis...

Historically...this was the order of development...

1. Stokoe...late 1960s
2. Sutton SignWriting 1974 in Denmark (no connection to Stokoe at 
all...I had never heard of Stokoe at the time of the SignWriting 
invention)
3. HamNoSys...around 1988...(it was stimulated by SignWriting, which 
was in Denmark next door to Germany...I know the history)
4. SignFont...1985 or so...was directly stimulated by SignWriting in 
San Diego...long story but I was actually involved in the beginning 
with the SignFont project...

So two systems followed SignWriting...HamNoSys and SignFont... and both 
were stimulated by SignWriting in different ways...

And SignFont is not used much at all...Most SignFont users are now 
using SignWriting...

Stefan asked in his recent message What is SignFont? It was a sad 
time...SignWriting was used by a computer group here in San Diego, and 
they hired me and my Deaf staff to work with them....but when they got 
big-time funding from our US government, they decided to try to invent 
their own writing system instead of using SignWriting...why? because 
SignWriting was used by Deaf people and it was harder to program...so 
they created their own system called SignFont, and I and our Deaf staff 
left their project very upset...SignFont was not developed with Deaf 
people..then later it was given to a linguist named Don Newkirk to 
promote in the Deaf Community and for awhile it was an upsetting 
annoyance to our Deaf staff....some of my Deaf staff were in tears over 
it, because they loved SignWriting so much...but then in time it became 
clear that SignFont was not a writing system that could be used on a 
daily basis and it is not used by any group of deaf people that I know 
of...SignWriting works because it evolved naturally after 1974, with 
use by Deaf people themselves and teachers...because I chose to work 
with Deaf people and made sure that their opinions became paramount and 
were the only thing that mattered, really, SignWriting has really 
spread because Deaf people used it...and the Stokoe system, and 
HamNoSys are not used as for writing Sign Literature...those two 
systems are NOT movement notation systems...they are linguistically 
based notation systems useful for linguistic research...

OK...Enough on other systems!! smile...Val ;-)

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> SignWriting has proved the most popular, partly due to the fact that 
> it is not specific to any one sign language; it can be used by sign 
> languages all over the world.
> SignWriting makes it possible to have books, newspapers, magazines, 
> dictionaries, and literature written in signs. It can be used to teach 
> signs and signed language grammar to beginning signers, or it can be 
> used to teach other subjects, such as math, history, or English to 
> skilled signers.
> While it was first established in 1974

I would say.....While it was first developed in 1974 in Denmark....

>  and began being used by American Sign Language users in 1981

..and was used in the Danish School System from 1982-1988, and in 
Norway from 1988 on....


> it is in the last few years with the spread of the internet and 
> increased PC-ownership that SignWriting began being used around the 
> world.
> But hang on, you might be saying, just what is SignWriting? In this 
> article we look at what SignWriting is, how it came about and its 
> potential… And whether it is needed?
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