SignWriting in Denmark - politics again!

[Shane Gilchrist O hEorpa]

Val,

thank you for this - i will fwd it to Asger Bergman (hes the president
of Danish Deaf Association)

:-)

Shane @ ESWO

On 4/13/06, Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org> wrote:
> SignWriting List
> April 13, 2006
>
> Shane and Everyone -
>
> See this photo pasted below...
>
> Those are Danish Deaf children learning SignWriting at Randersgade
> Deaf School in Copenhagen, in 1984 I believe...that is 22 years ago.
> That is me, visiting as a guest...yes...I had hair at that
> time....And Bente Sparrevohn, their teacher, is to my right in the
> photo...Bente is one of the most skilled signwriters in Denmark and
> transcribed volumes of Deaf storytelling in DSL in a wonderful
> published book...the Deaf children had notebooks which they kept all
> their SignWriting in, and they were showing me their SignWriting
> notebooks...
>
> Bente tells me that the schools in Denmark have changed dramatically
> since the 1990's and they are not as focused on sign language as
> much...maybe SignWriting could bring in a comeback to the good old
> days! 22 years ago is a long time and of course time marches on...but
> we can march into the future in a better way...smile...
>
> Meanwhile people in Norway started writing with SignWriting around
> that time too..Ingvild can tell us more about that history...so
> SignWriting was in schools in Norway too, in the late 1980's...
>
>   Val ;-)
>
>
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>
>
> On Apr 13, 2006, at 2:01 PM, Valerie Sutton wrote:
>
> > SignWriting List
> > April 13, 2006
> >
> > Everyone, and Shane -
> > Did you know that Asger Bergman's Deaf wife, Ritva, was one of the
> > best SignWriting teachers of Deaf children in Denmark in the
> > 1980's? You have no idea how fabulous it was to see Ritva teach
> > SignWriting to 6 and 7 year old Deaf children at the Aalborg School
> > for the Deaf in Aalborg, Denmark. I know! I was there to see it.
> > And one of Asger and Ritva's darling Deaf children...their Deaf
> > son...was there in the classroom when I was an invited guest
> > there...and they had signs written in SignWriting across the walls
> > in the halls of the school, and Ritva wanted, at that time, to give
> > them good language in BOTH Danish spoken language and good DSL
> > grammar sentences too...so they had the SignWriting in DSL grammar
> > in a sentence on the wall, and the good spoken Danish written
> > translation underneath. I was treated like a royal guest, when I
> > visited the school...one of the memories one never forgets...they
> > used SignWriting in the schools until 1988, when the funding ran
> > out and other politics perhaps and then they continue to use
> > SignWriting, but in a different way than we do, and only for
> > interpreters and research and parents of Deaf children, but
> > SignWriting was in the Danish schools from 1982- 1988 for the
> > younger Deaf children...but I was blessed to know both Ritva and
> > Asger a little bit at that time and I really treasure the memory of
> > being in their home and seeing, at that time, their darling Deaf
> > children...very young and their tiny little hands signing at native
> > speeds - totally wonderful! And Asger met Stefan Woehrmann last
> > summer in Maastricht - smile!
> >
> > It is no one's fault that things changed in Denmark...but they
> > still use an old version of the system and I think, if they learn
> > the way we write around the world now, they might find that Deaf
> > children will learn SignWriting in Denmark again...but they need to
> > be informed about the way we are all writing now...they haven't
> > been in touch with me since around 1990....
> >
> > As far as when the system was invented...it started in Denmark in
> > Copenhagen while I was working at the University of Copenhagen...at
> > that time I was not in touch with Deaf people but was asked to
> > write a video of Deaf and hearing people signing...I was teaching
> > DanceWriting (my invention) at the Royal Danish Ballet at the
> > time...that was 1974...and it was a researcher (hearing) named Lars
> > von der LIeth who asked me to transcribe the video, but he was
> > against the idea of writing the language...that was my idea when I
> > looked at my transcription and realized that if I worked with Deaf
> > people we might have a written form for the language...I had just
> > been learning to speak my second language, Danish, and I love
> > languages and saw this as a possible collaboration with the Deaf
> > Community...so I went to Lars to suggest this, and Lars, who is a
> > lovely man, but was not on the same wave length with me, said he
> > didn't think anyone would want to write sign language..he just
> > wanted it for his research...so I returned home to the USA and
> > worked with Deaf people and then in 1982, when we were publishing a
> > newspaper written in ASL with 10 Deaf native signers in ASL here in
> > the USA... I sent a copy of the SignWriter Newspaper written in ASL
> > to Britta Hansen in Denmark and then she invited me to come back to
> > Denmark to teach the teachers at the Deaf Center for Total
> > Communication in Denmark in 1982...that is how it entered the
> > Danish School System...Asger may not realize that Denmark was the
> > first country in history to teach SignWriting to Deaf children, and
> > Ritva Bergmann was one of the first teachers, along with Bente
> > Sparrevohn, Annegrethe Pedersen (Deaf) and several others...See the
> > names on this research project:
> >
> > Danish School System uses SignWriting
> > http://www.signwriting.org/forums/research/rese002.html
> >
> > Val ;-)
> >
> > ----------
> >
> >
> >
> > On Apr 13, 2006, at 1:29 PM, Shane Gilchrist O hEorpa wrote:
> >
> >> 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
> >>
> >
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