SignWriting List Forum

Just wanted to share another experience I just had this weekend. We had a party and I happened to mention somehow about SignWriting so we went to the site and I showed it to the people there. At first, they "made faces" about it, but then after I explained how it worked and explained the potential in ways that they could actually use it, several were excited about the possibilities.

I have plans in the works for a workshop here, but I am trying to get certain key people in the community to be a part of it. So we will see.

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Stuart Thiessen
Des Moines, IA
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My experience with the objections to SignWriting has been that most people are simply reacting to an initial perception of complexity. Once they begin to work through the symbols (if they are open-minded), they begin to get excited about it. I have also noted that deaf people who struggle with English are more excited about this than deaf people who feel competent in English. I honestly believe that those who struggle with English would do much better with English once they have a written context from which to master English. Perhaps those who have learned English well feel they won't get a return on their investment in learning written SL like they can from mastering English.

I believe a lot of these objections might disappear once there are sufficient body of literature that they can actually read and that actually helps them in some area of their lives.