USA SW Symposium in DC

Wed Jun 7 19:41:01 UTC 2006

Okay, part of my logic is this.

  When Deaf Way II was here, the only people even spending any time on non-USA signed languages to any extent were the SW people.  I made my presentation speaking from both ASL and Libras, when every other presentation on Signed Languages spoke almost exclusively from an ASL point of view.  Only SW treats all signed languages equally.  I had representatives coming to me from Panama, Colombia, Peru, and Brazil as I was the only one who even acted as if they were alive.  

  The several lectures on "sign language literature" were using "literature" to include "corpuses of discussion" which is not the normal English way of using the word as  "hard paper actual physical written language".  

  Sign language as literature, to me, gives SW a strong point that other discussions have not had, a true written literature for sign language, and that's why I want to see a symposium on SW in the States, to show the US, and particularly Gallaudet, that it is NOT the only sign language in the world, that users of sign language in many other countries are miles and miles and books and books ahead of the United States in this area.

  Yes, it would be lovely to have a symposium just for US users of SW, but right now, the showpiece of our developments is the fact that it is a universal writing system.

  Having the symposium, if possible, held on the Gallaudet campus (if you can use your connections to spearhead that) would be great.  I don't know if it could be held during the school year, but it would certainly be good if it could because that way we'd truly have representation.

  Such a symposium will not be cheap to put on, and will require very careful planning, and I cannot do it alone.  Anyone who wishes to help me needs to write me as soon as possible so we can brainstorm on exactly what will be included, what kind of budget we should propose to have, and then what kind of sponsors we are going to likely need to pull this off.

  Charles Butler

Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org> wrote:
  Charles Butler wrote:
> I want to talk about one in South America soon. Having a symposium 
> in the States is about the best way you can talk about it.

Smile...

I am not quite following your logic here.. Go right ahead and talk 
about South America ...that is fine...

This proves my point, which is that people are oftentimes interested 
in other places rather than their own country...

Someday I hope we can have a Symposium in the USA for USAers ;-)

I am sure that Brazil and others in South and Central America will 
have their own Symposiums someday....They are way ahead of us!

Val ;-)

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