SignWriting in Denmark - politics again!

[Shane Gilchrist O hEorpa]

everyone,

im on the BSL Tutors training course at Heriot Watt University
(Edinburgh) where we are being trained to become trainers of BSL
tutors in Scotland (in my case, Ireland!)

this week we have a lovely lecturer called Asger Bergman who is the
president of Danish Deaf Association and he used to work at the
Communication Centre at Copenhagen where they train interpreters and
do sign language trainings etc.

To my surprise they still use the older form of signwriting when he
showed us their handouts etc - they still use the arms etc - and he
tried to dismiss it as "oh thats American" i had to disagree with him
straight away saying that it was invented in Denmark, yes by an
American woman but with the guidance of deaf people etc - it was the
deaf community in Denmark who have asked Val Sutton to get involved. I
think people were just obsessed with the fact that Val Sutton is a
hearie - its not even important - even so if it is important, Val did
have a team of really intelligent pro-ASL deaf people working together
- why else did she move to La Jolla - she didnt move there just for
the view!!! (she moved there to be close to the Salk Institute where
they were doing a big ASL research project)

It was the petty politics rearing its ugly head once more - i said
that the Sutton System is very useful, let it be academic or not - and
its always evolving etc - it will evolve into a better system if more
and more people use it to a point it can be considered "normal" - he
said that it is not used at all in the deaf schools.

I forgot to mention that Carol Padden thinks Signwriting is really
good and "cute" the bother is that its a bit too complicated for her
(i think shes reclutant about using it as its not yet used much by the
deaf community in the USA - that has to change!)

That is something ESWO have to do something about it - we need
something to unite Europe's deaf community - and SignWriting may be
the way. It is important to get deaf organisations to back the SW
system - im sure the Irish Deaf Society, the Ulster Insitute for the
Deaf and the British Deaf Association will back this (eventually)

the problem is that most people think SW is only limited to sign
linguists - thats not even the point!

Shane