Main Page

From PuddleNet

Welcome to the SignPuddle Information Network. This website contains the original work of Stephen E Slevinski Jr.

1 The Open Standards of SignWriting
2 BSW Data and Tokens
- 2.1 Hello
- 2.2 Hello world
3 Be sure to check out...
4 Visitor Messages

The Open Standards of SignWriting

There is an emerging open standard for SignWriting that will reach an international group. A new standard will empower people throughout the world, in all countries, for all sign languages. As the groups are enabled, they will grow and their culture will continue to flourish, but in new and amazing ways.

Video is not text. The open standards of SignWriting establish sign language as text. The open standards cover the alphabet, data model, and user interface. Neither the individual sign languages, nor their respective text corpora are covered by the open standards.

I started 5 years ago with the creator of the SignWriting script: Valerie Sutton. Her 501c3 non-profit is over 30 years old. I work as an independent consultant. We have an active community of users in many countries around the world. http://www.signwriting.org/about/who/

2 years ago, Valerie and I decided to develop open standards based on our work in 3 areas: alphabet, data model, and user interface. We completed the alphabet last year: the International SignWriting Alphabet 2008. The ISWA 2008 is available under the Open Font License.

The data model and user interface are illustrated in the SignWriting Image Server. (http://www.signbank.org/swis) The software is released under the GPL 3. The standards document is released under Creative Commons (by-sa).

Sign language is vastly different than spoken language. Instead of the sequential sounds of the voice, there is a 3 dimensional space with simultaneous action. The SignWriting script captures the essence of sign language as text. It is very easy to start reading and writing with paper.

Bringing the SignWriting script to the computer is entirely different. The Unicode standard breaks down due to it's sequential character model. Currently, Unicode can only simulate a spatial nature with superscripts and subscripts and complicated rules for combining sequential characters.

SignWriting combines a limited number of symbols on a 2 dimensional canvas. Each word is a cluster of symbols that are read as a single unit and represented by characters with coordinate data. We are encoding the script and not the specific language. SignWriting can be used for all sign languages without modification.

Our standards are used today and they are practical. We recently completed a translation of the Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss with permission from Dr. Seuss Enterprises. http://www.signwriting.org/library/children/CatHat.html

Moving forward, I am considering Oasis or W3C as an organization to provide a formal process and quality control to finalize the first version of the open standards of SignWriting.

OASIS

The first organization I'm considering is Oasis. I will join as an individual for $300 a year. I need 2 other individuals and 2 groups. It is very costly to join as a group. Please let me know if you know anyone who belongs to a company or organization that has already joined Oasis. The foundational sponsors of Oasis include: IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems.

W3C

I am considering a browser addon for FireFox to complete my proof of concept for the Plane 4 Solution. It appears that the Mozilla foundation works with the W3C rather than Oasis. I'm looking for contacts within the W3C or the Web Foundation. Perhaps we can work together with the Center for Sutton MovementWriting.

You or someone you know

The open standards of SignWriting are the fruits of the Sutton-Slevinski collaboration. We have been blessed with users throughout the world who use and discuss the system.

The technical details need to be finalized and documented. They need to be reviewed and discussed. Resources need to be donated or funded. If you're willing to donate your time, join the SignWriting List or start a conversation. If you know of a funding source for a 501c3 non-profit please let us know. We need to pay writers, developers, even SVG font work.

Regards,
-Stephen E Slevinski Jr.
slevin@signpuddle.net

BSW Data and Tokens

The BSW data is defined by a simple character encoding model. BSW can be converted into 1o different types of token. The token string can be verified by Regular Expressions. Here is the test data and the pattern. You can try the Mochikit RegExp demo with the ASL sign for "hello" or the sign text "hello world."

Hello

data stream:
- 00801ce0f8d4f8ec8746f8eaf8fe
token stream
- Bwnnwnn
Regular Expression pattern to validate the entire token stream
- /^([LBR]([wc]nn)*(Q[wcs]*)?|P)+$/i

Hello world

data stream:
- 00801ce0f8d4f8ec8746f8eaf8fe008032eaf89ef91432e1f897f8fb5ec0f8b1f901b3b4f8a9f8e5ec20
token stream
- BwnnwnnBwnnwnnwnnwnnP
Regular Expression pattern to validate the entire token stream
- /^([LBR]([wc]nn)*(Q[wcs]*)?|P)+$/i
Regular Expression pattern to match all signs up to and including first punctuation
- /([LBR]([wc]nn)*(Q[wcs]*)?)*P?/