SignWriting Hand-Angle

It marks a hand configuration within a written sign.

Sutton SignWriting is a visual system for writing signed languages. This base handshape can appear with symbols for movement, contact, the face, and location. Fill and rotation marks modify its drawn form. The sign's two-dimensional arrangement—where each symbol sits relative to the others—also carries information, so this character cannot name one universal gesture.

How was SignWriting developed?

It grew from a system for recording movement.

Valerie Sutton created SignWriting in Denmark in 1974 for a University of Copenhagen research project. The team wanted to record movements in videos of hearing people gesturing and Danish Deaf people signing, then compare the records. The notation grew out of Sutton DanceWriting through the broader Sutton Movement Writing system. It was designed to write different signed languages with shared symbols, rather than to spell one spoken language.

In the early 1980s, SignWriting used a receptive viewpoint: the view of a reader facing the signer. A shorter flat-hand symbol showed a hand projecting forward. Later, the expressive viewpoint, from the signer's side, and a top view changed that convention. In a 2001 note, Sutton explained that the angle hand had been designed from the older projection symbol. She restored that flat-hand symbol to the larger symbol collection, suggesting occasional use in the German Sign Language sign for “boat.”

Why doesn't the angle hand make a sign alone?

A base handshape is one part of the written sign.

If you receive only this character, read it as a notation fragment. A complete sign may combine handshape with movement, contact, location, facial symbols, and other handshapes. The two-dimensional layout matters too. A missing-glyph box may point to font support; even a visible symbol does not show how a whole sign is arranged.