[Sw-l] SignWriting will be 50 years old in 2024 !

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
November 8, 2023

Thank you, Amit and Carlos, for this discussion… How shall we celebrate SignWriting’s 50th anniversay?

SignWriting started when I was invited to write the movements of Hearing Person’s Gestures, and compare those movements to writing real Danish Sign Language, for a research project at the University of Copenhagen. The resulting paper, was a dissertation for the Ph.D of Jan Enggaard Pedersen:

Hørende Danskeres Gestus-Repertoire
(Hearing Danes' Gesture-Repertoire)
by Jan Enggaard Pedersen. This published research used SignWriting to record hearing person's gestures. The research was conducted at the Audiologopædisk Forskningsgruppe, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
https://www.signwriting.org/library/history/hist003.html


My first presentation of the system to the researchers at the University, was in October, 1974 and I was given the job of writing Danish Sign Language from video almost immediately… so the true beginning of SignWriting was October 1974. I was on the telphone yesterday, November 7, 2023, with Denmark, talking with my old boss and I found out that several of my co-workers from that time period have passed away. So it may be hard for me to get videos from that time period because they were on tape, not videos like we know them today. I may have to contact a librarian in Denmark...

However, Sutton DanceWriting, MimeWriting and MovementWriting were developed before that time. DanceWriting began in 1966. and MimeWriting and MovementWriting were under development in the Summer 1974.

So yes, I can try to find the exact date of my first presentation to the University of Copenhagen, which started my job writing signs, in October 1974 and that date can be used as the real date of the beginning of SignWriting.

Here is the presentation I made in 2014 on the History of SignWriting. 

Presentation on SignWriting History
by Valerie Sutton at the SW Symposium 2014
“40 Years Writing Sign Languages:
Evolution of SignWriting 1974-2014”
https://www.signwriting.org/symposium/presentation0040.html

And also there could be several kinds of celebrations - Your plan sounds great Carlos, and also Steve Slevinski has already planned on a software development symposium… Find the information in the SW List Archives.

Feel free to post in any language - Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian - and all sign languages - all are welcome!

Val ;-)

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> On Nov 8, 2023, at 10:37 AM, Carlos Cristian Libras <carloscristianlibras at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I would like a very special day to be set in 1974 for the creation of signwriting.
> Perhaps the date of publication of the magazine or newspaper that first announced the possibility of signwriting to the world.
>  With this date, we can do 2 things:
>  1 - Establish an international day to commemorate sign writing. And in the future this may be granted by the "UN".
> 
> 2 - We could do an event broadcast live, as if it were a seminar and each participant who wanted to participate could give a small presentation of some work they did or a personal account of how they have used or taught sign writing.
> 
> Regarding the possibility of a Seminar, if necessary, I organize it myself, together with the participants, and help Valerie Sutton or Steve to carry out the live broadcast at StreamYard.
> 
> There is no problem about different languages. Everyone who is going to present in their native language just needs to write a script in text. Then we can use the text as a translation (in the form of a Slide, Automatic Caption, interpreters and others).
> 
> But I would like to see the other suggestions or if there would be engagement in the ones I proposed.
> 
> On Wed, Nov 8, 2023 at 11:41 AM Amit Moryossef <amitmoryossef at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there a specific date to celebrate, or just 2024 in general? :)
> 
> -
> On Tue, Nov 7, 2023 at 6:19 PM Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org> wrote:
> SignWriting List,
> November 7, 2023
> 
> SignWriting will be 50 years old in 2024!
> 
> How shall we celebrate?
> 
> Val ;-)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Valerie Sutton
> sutton at signwiting.org
> SignWriting.org
>