How To Write a Sign Language, Part 2: Projectional Systems
How To Write a Sign Language
Part 2: Projectional Systems
- Sign Language Dictionary - Writing History
- The Hunt for The Perfect Sign Language Writing System (© 2025 Zrajm)
Last post in this series I talked about logographies. This post I will talk about Projectional Systems.
Projectional Systems
The concept of projectional systems is deliciously simple. How should we write sign languages? Why not just draw the hands doing stuff! As such projectional systems use both simplified drawings of the hands and body, as well as relative positions of said glyphs to create a sign.
This opens up both great opportunities and major problems.
Sign languages are 3D languages. They use space and directions in their vocabulary and grammar. Projectional systems use the 2D space on the page to mimic that 3D spatial / directional grammar.
For instance verbs (like ATTACK in British Sign Language) change direction depending on who did what to who; I-ATTACK-YOU will travel from me to you, whereas YOU-ATTACK-ME will travel towards myself.
images sketched with paint
Sign languages are also visual languages and use iconicity - where signs look like what they mean. In the previous part I discussed how logographies can use this iconicity for their glyphs. Instead projectional writing systems directly depict what the hands are doing, which often capture that same iconicity that is present in the signs.
Image adapted from: ASL: 3D Object by Garrett Bose in Sutton SignWriting
Oral Languages - there's nothing quite like it
But unlike logographies, projectional systems are unique amongst world languages. No spoken language writing system works this way. Some scripts like Korean (Hangeul), Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Mayan glyphs have some similarities - but none allow glyphs to be arranged as freely as projectional systems do, with where they are placed so drastically changing the meaning.
Korean Hangeul is said to be based on the shapes the tongue / mouth makes to make certain sounds. Additionally the letters are arranged into 2D blocks by stacking them on-top of one another.
But as becomes evident, the combinations of are far more limited than what projectional systems allow. There are only specific patterns in which the letters of Hangeul can be arranged into blocks, you cannot just place them anywhere.
Other heiroglyphic systems such as Egyptian have some more freeform glyph placement, as I showed in the previous part:
While the arrangement of these glyphs can be complicated, they are also highly flexible. Projectional systems on the other hand are not flexible, as if you change the arrangement of glyphs in a character, you change the meaning of the character.
The fact that they are novel poses issues, as there is no precedent for what such a system would look like if codified nor digitised.
What does accurate spelling look like if you can use glyphs in any combination, orientation and position on the page?
How do you even encode such a system for writing digitally?
The two big examples of Projectional writing systems are Sutton Signwriting and the Si5S-SLwrite family of systems.
Sutton Signwriting
Sutton Signwriting (most often shortened to Signwriting) was developed by Valerie Sutton out of her previous work, Dancewriting, at the request of the University of Copehagen in 1974. As a system it shows signs directly using simplified drawings of the hands, body, face and arrows. It uses shading to indicate some information such as orientation, which is very rare amongst world languages.
Image Source: SignWriting - Wikipedia
Image Source: Sutton SignWriting - Omniglot
Sutton Signwriting found early success back when it was first developed but didn't manage to maintain this momentum in most of the world. It has been adapted to most global sign languages and has found niche use over time. The largest body of use is in Brazil, where it has been adapted by Deaf education and academia. There is a dissertation written and numerous children's books written in LIBRAS using Sutton Signwriting.
Jack and Jill in Sutton Signwriting
Image Source: 2. Sutton SignWriting Notation(SSW) for the nursery rhyme, "Jack and... | Download Scientific Diagram
There has been significant work creating materials for Sutton Signwriting, adapting it to sign languages around the globe as well as making it more digitally compatible. I will talk more about digitisation later in this essay.
Image Source: Sutton SignWriting - Omniglot
There is also a handwritten (cursive / shorthand) form of Sutton Signwriting, but it looks very different from its standard digital form.
Image Sources: SignWriting Handwriting and Shorthand, SignWriting Handwriting, SignWriting Shorthand For Sign Language Stenography 1982
Review
Positive: Sutton Signwriting is easy to read individual signs, and even has some longer texts written in it. It also undoubtedly occupies a historic place in the development of sign language writing. The availability of resources in and about so many different languages is also a big bonus. It is many people's first introduction and intuitively demonstrates yes... maybe this is possible.
Negative: However it is hard to write both on paper (because it requires shading) and digitally (because it requires positioning). The handwritten form seems easier to write, but looks very different from it's regular printed form and is way harder to decode - additionally I have never actually seen it used anywhere before. Additionally - being so wide as to include so many sign languages risks it becoming a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none. I for one believe it would be perfect for a dictionary, perhaps an equivalent to the International Phonetic Alphabet, as it can show how signs are produced. But I am hesitant to adopt it as an every-day writing system.
Si5S-SLwrite
(Si5S, ASLwrite, écritureLSQ, etc)
The Si5S-SLwrite family has a somewhat storied history. They are similar to Sutton Signwriting in that they use simplified depictions of hands, bodies and movements - but they simplify them even further for ease of writing.
Si5S was initially made by Robert Arnold in a thesis. It was made somewhat as a response to Sutton Signwriting, but with many efficiencies. Si5S found a lot of success early on - with many workshops popping up to teach it, and adoption for a brief period by Gallaudet university. Additionally Si5S has been adapted to Japanese Sign Language (nihon-shuwa).
Si5S
Image Source: arnold_augustus+ritchie+stecker-2013-official_asl_writing_textbook.pdf
However Si5S, or perhaps more accurately the material used to spread and learn it, was the copyright of Arnold, which was disliked by some learners. Thus they, namely Adrean Clark, made a breakaway open source project named ASLwrite. It took most of the base concepts making it completely free to access, use and edit. Many of the complicated parts of Si5S were simplified.
From there ASLwrite has been adapted to other languages. This includes BSLwrite and écritureLSQ. Overall these are sometimes referred to as "SLwrite".
This split may be part of the cause of Si5S/ASLwrite losing momentum - but another part is just that many people lost interest. Both systems are simple to learn the basics of but somewhat difficult to master. Additionally I have not heard much from the creator of Si5S in the past decade or so, though the creator of ASLwrite is still active on her own channel and other corners of the internet (Adrean Clark - YouTube).
Style wise the entire Si5S-SLwrite family follows a line-and-dot approach (using only those two shapes to make up its glyphs). It avoids standard arrows and shading, which ends up making it easier to write and look more like writing systems of spoken languages. Si5S is a little more complex, with more diacritics and also use of a few logograms which are used for efficiency. SLwrite is simpler; handshape forms were simplified, diacritics dropped and the logograms cut out.
There have been a number of books teaching both Si5S and ASLwrite - along with a simplified sheet that teaches how to write ASLwrite and a font to write ASLwrite digitally. I will discuss digital compatibility more below.
Review
Positive: I find ASLwrite in particular to be easy to write by hand. It is my go to when I want to sketch a sign for someone else or jot down a quick note in sign language (except where I now use Icoglyphs). I very often find myself opening up a Paint canvas on my computer, sketching a sign or few, then copy-pasting that to one of my friends if I want to discuss some signs without recording a whole video of myself.
Negative: It is, however, an absolute bastard to write digitally. Even with the Bee Olive font (which I cover down below) it is still hard to use. Normally I just open a paint document, which is not good enough if I were to want to write a longer document or text my friends. With a little more work it could perhaps work.
Other Examples
Although the above two are the poster children for projectional systems, others exist also. Two separate systems named "Visografia" and "Visagrafía" exist and are projectional. As well as other obscure examples.
Visografia
SBM is a system made for French Sign Language (LSF) with inspiration taken from HamNoSys, D'Sign and SignWriting. It utilises simplified drawings of the entire head and arms rather than just the hands.
Digital Compatibility
