[Sw-l] CZECH REPUBLIC: Thesis: Conventions in the development of SignWriting

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
October 20, 2024

Thank you, Ingvild Roald, for this excellent message about SignWriting History of the evolution of writing styles. Ingvild has played a big role in how we write today…as you can read in her message to Lucie below.

I will be posting more links on this subject to the SignWriting List soon.

And thank you once again, Ingvild!

Val ;-)


> 
>> Begin forwarded message:
>> 
>> From: Ingvild Roald <iroald at hotmail.com>
>> Subject: SignWriting notation history notes
>> Date: October 18, 2024 at 12:20:59 PM PDT
>> To: "523434 at muni.cz" <523434 at muni.cz>
>> Cc: Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org>
>> 
>> 
>> Dear Lucie,
>> 
>> I am Ingvild Roald from Norway. I am a hearing woman who used to be a teacher of physics, mathematics etc. to Norwegian Deaf youngsters (16 upwards) in what was then our main national high school for Deaf youth. I have been involded with SignWriting since 1984, on and off, and visited Valerie three times to discuss the system. I also used this system to refer min conversations/ interwiev guide in my doctoral work (I got my degree in 2001, though I have not published on the system itself. - I have also been using SW in my teaching, and have dicussed it with a number of Deaf persons. Some of them would like to use this themselves, but are afraid it is too much work, or that other persons in the Deaf community will not like it, as they maintaain that Deaf culture is an "oral", living one, not to be harnessed in writing. My guess is that they themselves have been forced to read and write Norwegian, and are fed up and feel opressed by the mere thought of writing.
>> 
>> As for the development of the SW system: when I first met it, I was visiting a school for Deaf children in Copenhagen, Denmark, and a girl, 10 years old, proudly shoved me that she culd write her own language. As mentioned, this was in 1984. She used full-body notation, and separeted the sign with a vertical bar between each sign.
>> 
>> I was fasicinated, and wrote Valerie for a textbook on the system, which I got just before Christmas that year. I found that I was able to read most of it, even if I did not know the language (ASL) that was written. Since then, I have been advocating the use of this sytem as often as I have felt it was prudent.
>> 
>> One of teh first things I did, with the help of theachers of Deaf childre, was to contact the only Norwegian Deaf liguist at the time (now there are several), to discuss the system and what handshapes should be used  to write our signs.
>> 
>> At that time, the flat B-hand was written as a rectangle. Her suggestion, based on her own notation system, was to make the top of the hand (the tip of the fingers) into an angled shape. Thus for a while this now standard handshape was known as "Ingvild´s little house". 
>> 
>> In the Norwegian sign language, the mouth is used a lot, both to show spesific "Deaf" mouthshapes (adverbials/ adjektives?) and to mouth Norwegain words while the hands are doing the main sign. Thus several signs can be made identically or nearly identical by the hands, while the mouth is used to distinguish between them - fingerspelling is sparsely used in Norwegian SL. So I have had the opportunity to discuss mouthing and other topics with Valerie, as well as with other members of the DAC and with Stefan in Germany. - I was for a short while chairperson of the ESWO, the European SigWritng Organisation, which was short lived.
>> 
>> If you haqve any questions you think I can answer, feeil free to ask 🙂
>> 
>> Best wishes for your work,
>> 
>> Ingvild Roald, cand. real., dr. Philos., Bergen , Norway
>> 
>> (now retired, as I am now more than 80 years old)
>> 
>> 
>> Ingvild 

————

==============================

> On Oct 16, 2024, at 11:07 AM, Valerie Sutton <sutton at SIGNWRITING.ORG> wrote:
> 
> SignWriting List
> October 16, 2024
> 
> Hello SignWriting List Members!
> 
> Welcome to our new List member, Lucie Hudková from the Czech Republic. Lucie is working on her thesis at Masaryk University: "Conventions in the development of SignWriting”. Her supervisor is Mr. Jan Fikejs, M.A. who is also a member of the SignWriting List.
> 
> As you can read in the message below, Lucie needs information on the History of SignWriting and specifically information on the history of the evolution of writing styles.
> 
> So I will be preparing a series of links that will provide information on SignWriting History and the Evolution of Writing Styles.
> 
> I will post the links and information here on the SignWriting List for everyone’s benefit.
> 
> THANK YOU, Lucie Hudková, Miriam Šerá, and Jan Fikejs, for the work you all are doing at Masaryk University writing sign languages.
> 
> Val ;-)
> 
> Valerie Sutton
> sutton at signwriting.org
> SignWriting.org
> 
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> ==========================
> 
>> Begin forwarded message:
>> 
>> From: Lucie Hudková <523434 at muni.cz>
>> Subject: Bachelors thesis - Conventions in the development of SignWriting
>> Date: October 3, 2024 at 8:46:27 AM PDT
>> To: "sutton at signwriting.org" <sutton at signwriting.org>
>> 
>> Dear Ms. Sutton,
>> I am reaching out to you as a student of a Bachelor's degree in Czech Sign Language Interpreting at Masaryk university. I am writing my thesis on the topic of "Conventions in the development of SignWriting," and my supervisor is Mr. Jan Fikejs, M.A., who has previously contacted you regarding my work. :)
>> My thesis is primarily based on the bachelor's thesis of Miriam Šerá, as well as on your work (books/website), and materials I have received. For my research, I need additional materials that contain notations from various stages of development, to have sufficient sources for my study. I wanted to ask if it would be possible to obtain more materials from you, for example, from the periods of full-body notation, SignWriting handwriting, SignWriting shorthand, and also during the phases of expressive, vertical, and stacked evolution.
>> Any material that allows me to compare character notations across these periods would be very helpful, really anything you have. Thank you very much for your response and cooperation.
>> Best regards,
>> Lucie Hudková
> 
>