SignWriting is a system of Hiéroglyphe S abstract which makes it possible to read and to write the movements of all the gestural languages of the world. The access to the language of the signs is thus made simpler from there since the deaf persons can thus preserve it and hearing them who are interested in the language of the signs can thus learn it more easily.

It was developed in 1974 per Valerie Sutton, a dancer who had developed 2 years earlier Dance Writing.

Sutton taught DanceWriting in Royal Danish Ballet, Lars von der Lieth, which made research on the language of the signs at the University of Copenhagen, thinking that it would be useful to employ a similar notation for the recording of the languages of the signs. Sutton based SignWriting on DanceWriting and finally improved the system with the complete repertory of MovementWriting. However, only SignWriting and DanceWriting were widely diffused.

See too

• the site of SignWriting

• the French-speaking Switzerland dictionary in SignWriting… and all the other languages of the signs thanks to the flags in bottom of the page

• the French blog of SignWriting: discussion around SignWriting

• "To write the signes" by Marc Fox: republication of " Mimographie or test of writing mimique" (of Auguste Bébian) and presentation of six marking systems (more than eight hundred symbols) including that of Sutton.