Thursday, December 25, 2014

Season greetings


Every year there is a SignWriting card like this one. It is send to the people subscribed to the SignWriting mailinglist. They are created by the list members themselves, this time by Stefan and Elfriede Wöhrmann.

There is no card they can buy from Hallmark but the need for cards for the seasons greetings is as high as for anyone else. Most years I put the card on my blog and this year is no exception. Each year I hope for at least one Wikipedia in a sign language. Maybe in 2015. This is what Steven Slevinsky has to say about it. It explains the challenges and the hope for the future really well.
I believe that 2015 will be the year of the sign language Wikipedia.  I believe the ASL Wikipedia activity will increase and other sign language Wikipedia projects will start. 
The new TrueType fonts are a great step forward: pages are 30 times smaller and SignWriting can be displayed without an internet connection.  Each page is reduced to a single connection, elimination a unique connection for each sign/symbol on the page. 
The new editors based on the TrueType fonts are nearing completion.  This will increase the spread of written sign language all over the Internet. 
Written sign language will also spread because of the inclusion of the SignWriting symbols in Unicode 8. 
So 2015 will be an amazing year for SignWriting.  We'll have TrueType fonts, new editors, Unicode, and Wikipedia.  A great combination for success.
Regards,-Steve

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