SignWriting Cup Handshape

It tells you the handshape used in a sign. Think of a hand curved into a shallow hollow. The symbol is a schematic drawing of that configuration, rather than a detailed picture of individual fingers. By itself, it does not identify a particular word in a signed language.

SignWriting brings handshape, movement, contact, facial expression and body position onto the page. Its symbols form a spatial arrangement: where each one sits helps show how the sign is made. Fill and rotation distinguish palm orientation and the hand’s turn; they are meaningful parts of the writing, not decoration.

Does SignWriting belong to one signed language?

No. It can be used to write different signed languages. Those languages have their own vocabularies and grammars. Sharing a writing system does not make their signs mean the same thing.

Valerie Sutton developed SignWriting in 1974 through work at the University of Copenhagen, adapting her dance notation, DanceWriting, for research involving Danish Sign Language. A way of recording movement became a way for signers to write their languages directly, without first translating them into a spoken language.