Sutton SignWriting

Valery Sutton, an American woman, first became a dancer, then a dance teacher. In order to facilitate the process of teaching, she invented a system of signs, which stood for physical actions and movements. Next, she adapted it for a gesture script so that deaf people could communicate with the world.

Let's take a closer look at the symbols. They represent pictograms (small drawings) with the information about the fingers' position, palm's orientation in relation to body; various movements, touches, and facial expressions. All these elements come together and build up a separate gesture, a communicative item, which, as a rule, depicts some word and meaning. As you can see, this block is huge — there are lots of symbols, because very often one gesture can be written in different ways.

Currently the script is not standardized for any language.

Sutton signwriting is designed for writing vertically. The gestures are shown from the point of the speaker, not their interlocutor. The right arm is supposed to dominate. Although, if there is no standard version, you can write however you want.

The block contains punctuation marks, which include brackets and rotation modifiers.