Writing Non Manual Signals

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
April 14, 2013

Hello Maria and everyone -

Yes, I agree with you. I think the mouth movements in sequence from left to right, with only one head is an economical idea, that would make writing multiple mouth movements a little more readable for me in some ways - we know it is a Head because we see the circle for the Head in the beginning …perhaps there is no reason to repeat the Head Circle…unless an eyebrow or other facial features are needed in the middle of the mouth movement string...



I used the word "silly" to be sure that everyone understands that I am not telling anyone what to do - people take my words too seriously sometimes and I do not want that to happen - I want everyone to write as they feel is best for them - I am not trying to impose my ideas on anyone - I am just sharing ideas -

So we are in agreement, Maria. Every sign language is unique and every writer is too…and we are allowed, within the parameters of the SignWriting system, to experiment with different spelling ideas - including me - I am still working with new ideas too, for improved SignSpellings within our culture here...

Talking about a phenomena for your dissertation, and perhaps for Erika's book… back in 1974 when I first started SignWriting in Denmark, I was the only writer … now there are thousands of people writing SignWriting … mostly Signwriters I do not know... I have never met them, nor do I know who they are … People ask me how many people use SignWriting? and I have no idea …I know it has spread on the internet in ways one could only dream about - It is an amazing feeling...Occasionally I bump into someone who has been writing SignWriting for years, and I had no idea… they show me their writing and my heart jumps into my chest…and I realize that SignWriting is so much larger now …and some of the writers have been writing for decades - imagine that - "decades" of writing that has not been documented because we do not know where they are, since they learned on their own on the internet - So the internet has been a major influence on the spreading of SignWriting -

So I do not want my opinions to make anyone feel they have to change their own writing - but I will stop using the word "silly"….smile…. because you are right…it is not silly to be open to new ideas -

Val ;-)

------


On Apr 13, 2013, at 11:40 PM, maria galea <signwriting.maria at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> I like the mouth symbols in sequence without the head symbols for each one - a nice economical idea :)
> I don't think it looks silly - why would it? I think whatever different communities choose to write is great - and nothing is silly.  With time the choices become conventional for each community.   Every sign language is unique and in the same way it will be wonderful to study the different choices made for writing and encoding the different language using SignWriting.. :)
> maria

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/sw-l/attachments/20130414/7bfaf294/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: MouthMovements-without-Head.png
Type: image/png
Size: 1157 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/sw-l/attachments/20130414/7bfaf294/attachment.png>