Writing sign sentences in 5 possible directions

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
October 7, 2010

Hi Steve and Stefan!
Then let's add a feature someday that makes writing in 5 directions possible: vertical, horizontal right-to-left, horizontal-left-to-right, down-diagonal-right and down-diagonal-left. The horizontal, if being written along side Arabic, might want to go from right to left as well as left to right for western spoken languages...

As you can see by the attached screen capture, I included Punctuation Symbols for writing in all 5 directions in the ISWA 2008 and 2010. Why? Because I met one Deaf poet who wanted to write poetry in a diagonal before and needed the Punctuation in a diagonal, and another wrote a poem in a circle ;-)

And portions of the Koran are being written now in Saudi Arabia, so I suppose in time it will be nice to have a horizontal right to left....

So flexibility of writing direction, for headers in layouts, for creative art projects and poetry, and for teaching different languages at the same time, will all have the need for a choice...but we will default to writing vertically since that is what Deaf people have requested of us, and when writing sign language, without any comparison to any other language, it gives us the most accurate grammar features that no other direction can give us, because of the 3 Lanes...those are invaluable...

A lot to program and so many different worlds to please...;-))

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On Oct 7, 2010, at 10:41 AM, Steve Slevinski wrote:

> Hi Stefan,
> 
> Horizontal writing will return.
> 
> Regards,
> -Steve
>