SignWriting Hand-Hinge Index

It marks one hinged-index handshape inside a written sign.

A handshape is the hand's finger configuration: which fingers are bent, straight, or held together. 𝠄 denotes a hinged index-finger shape, but it has no single English translation or universal meaning; the complete SignWriting sign supplies the reading.

SignWriting began in Copenhagen in 1974, when researchers asked Valerie Sutton to adapt Sutton Movement Writing, a system for writing down movement, to transcribe gestures and Danish Sign Language from video. It later came to be used for different sign languages, where each complete sign gets its reading within that language.

How do you use 𝠄 in SignWriting?

Use it as one base in a complete SignWriting layout.

Fill characters show palm-orientation choices, and rotation characters turn the handshape; together, they can distinguish right- and left-hand realizations.

Signs can also include symbols for movement, contact, face, body, and location. Their two-dimensional placement is part of the sign: Unicode encodes the characters and modifiers, while a layout layer arranges them. A font can draw 𝠄 correctly even when the character alone does not display a complete sign.