SignWriting

SignWriting
Script type
Time period
1974–present
DirectionHorizontal (left-to-right) or vertical (top-to-bottom)
LanguagesAmerican Sign Language, Danish Sign Language and other sign languages
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Sgnw (095), ​SignWriting
Unicode
Unicode alias
SignWriting
U+1D800–U+1DAAF

Sutton SignWriting, or simply SignWriting, is a system of writing sign languages. It is highly featural and visually iconic, both in the shapes of the characters, which are abstract pictures of the hands, face, and body, and in their spatial arrangement on the page, which does not follow a sequential order like the letters that make up written English words. It was developed in 1974 by Valerie Sutton, a dancer who had, two years earlier, developed DanceWriting. Some newer standardized forms are known as the International Sign Writing Alphabet (ISWA).