SignWriting Tense Cheeks High

It marks cheeks held high and tense in a SignWriting facial sequence.

SignWriting records handshapes, movement, head position, and facial features. Facial marks record nonmanual features—details such as expression that accompany the hands—so the whole sign supplies the linguistic meaning; 𝨭 is not a standalone sign-language word.

SignWriting began in 1974, when Valerie Sutton adapted DanceWriting, her movement notation, to transcribe Danish Sign Language from video at the University of Copenhagen. The International SignWriting Alphabet (ISWA) catalog lists 𝨭 in 2008 as 03-02-002-01, in the Face Head cheek group. In the 1980s, Deaf SignWriters shifted toward expressive writing from the signer’s viewpoint, stacking facial marks above hands and movement.

Why does this mark look incomplete by itself?

Because 𝨭 is a combining mark, not a complete SignWriting sign.

Unicode treats face marks like this as nonspacing characters that follow the SignWriting head symbol (𝧿) in a combining sequence. Unicode stores the characters; a higher-level SignWriting system handles the script’s two-dimensional layout.

For input, use a SignWriting palette, editor, or keyboard mapping. Formal SignWriting in ASCII (FSW) is a text notation supported by SignWriting tools; the tool turns that form into a rendered sign.