SignWriting Handwriting and palm facing

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
January 11, 2011

Hi Charles -

I have changed this thread to "SignWriting Handwriting and palm facing" since your question is about Handwriting?

There are several kinds of handwriting. There is the SW Printing, like block printing for English, that is "perfect" or as close to the way we type or publish ...so that kind of handwritten symbols does not use the slash because it is trying to write the symbols by hand, exactly as they are written by computer.

Then there is the handwriting for personal use - which is like a blend of handwriting and shorthand... I like the slash for the palm facing parallel to the floor, but you are not required to use it if you don't want to - it was just a suggestion - after all, your handwriting is for yourself, so you can read your own notes, so if you don't like the slash representing the horizon line for palms parallel to the floor, then use another method for quick writing of palm facing -

Have you seen our SignWriting Handwriting lessons on the web?...the slash is not taught here:

SignWriting Handwriting
http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/cursive/
http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/cursive/handwriting/lesson102.html


Of course none of this occurs in the current SignPuddle because SignPuddle does not have handwritten symbols - they are symbols for computers and publishing and that is a different experience... we do not have a slash through the hand in the official "printing" of symbols in SignWriting, only for handwriting or shorthand...

So just do what is best for you -

and handwriting symbols are not in SignPuddle -

Val ;-)

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On Jan 11, 2011, at 3:21 PM, Charles Butler wrote:

> I am confused about the slashed hands in the lessons in Sign Writing. I have been teaching handwriting, and the handwriting symbols have not usually been taught with lines across them except as a shorthand for hands horizontal rather than vertical.  Having a hand with a slash does not appear in the current SignPuddle and so my Ethiopian students are likely to be confused.  I use arrows to show directions where there are not other than the four points of the compass.  The 45 degree plane is not very well defined on handshapes, so this has really confused me.
> 
> Sign shown:
>    /\
>   /  \