This document discusses issues with encoding SignWriting in Unicode 8. It summarizes the background of the author and history of SignWriting encoding proposals. The main issues are that Unicode 8 is incomplete, flawed, and fictional. It does not support the full 2D layout needed for SignWriting and breaks sorting, searching, and replacements. The author argues the Unicode 8 design will not be used by SignWriting projects and suggests addressing all issues to gain community support.

1. Issues with
SignWriting in
Unicode 8
Prepared for UTC # 144 / L2 # 241 (July 27-31, 2015)
a Unicode Technical Committee meeting in Redmond, WA
by Stephen E Slevinski Jr
in association with the Center for Sutton Movement Writing

2. My Background
Bachelor of Science
in Mathematics
Raised two kids with
sign language
Started collaboration with Valerie
Sutton from 2004 until today
Complete symbol encoding model on
PUA Plane 16 (37,811 characters)
Complete script encoding model on
PUA Plane 15 (1,179 characters)
Argued with Unicode in 2011
and then walked away
Released the ISWA 2010
symbol set in 2010
Finalized Formal SignWriting
in ASCII on Jan 12, 2012
5 Years of stability with the
symbol set and fonts design
3 1/2 Years of stability with the
character encoding models
Involved with dozens of sign
languages around the world
Foundation for all online use and
modern publishing efforts

3. SignWriting in Software
All major SignWriting editors and viewers are compatible.
• SignPuddle Online
Primary source of written sign language
• Delegs Editor
Educational software from Germany for bilingual education.
• SignWriter Studio
General purpose SignWriting editor, integrated dictionary, and printing.
• SWift
SignWriting improved fast transcriber that aims to simplify the editing process.
• JSPad
SignWriting editor for Japanese sign language based in the Gifu University.
• Tunisigner
interact with SignWriting notations through a 3D virtual signer able to reproduce
the exact gestures represented within the sign language transcription.
• SignTyp
a linguistic coding system developed by Rachel Channon through an NSF grant
that is being integrated with SignWriting.

4. http://www.signbank.org/signmaker.html
Code Breakdown
0 KB
7 KB
14 KB
21 KB
28 KB
35 KB
42 KB
49 KB
56 KB
63 KB
70 KB
Configuration
Support Libraries
Custom HTML, JS, and CSS
SignMaker 2015
Cross-browser, drag-and-drop sign editor,
with dictionary and advanced sign searching
SignWriting in Software

5. Bookmarklet
Javascript-based SignWriting Keyboard
Keyboarding editing has returned to SignWriting
Wikimedia Incubator
The keyboard editor is enabled on Wikimedia
Incubator for the American Sign Language
Wikipedia and every other sign language project.
Store JavaScript in a bookmark and you can use
SignWriting on any web page in any text fields.
Any Website
Add a few KB of JavaScript and the keyboard editor can be enabled
on any website using standard edit boxes and visual presentation.
http://www.signwriting.org/symposium/presentation0041.html
SignWriting in Software

6. What about Unicode?
PUA Plane 15 design (1,179 characters)
The symbol only design removed 2-D layout by dropping
5 structural markers and 500 number characters
N4015 Preliminary Unicode (674 characters)
N4090 Revised Unicode (672 characters)
N4342 Unicode Proposal (672 characters)
A new inherent design removes 2 characters (F1
and R1) and breaks collation as stated in proposal
A new facial diacritic design is proposed
that is unsupported and untested
The original design is still compatible with the community efforts.

7. Issues with SignWriting
in Unicode 8
The Unicode 8 specification will not be used
for any SignWriting project around the world.
The Unicode 8 specification for SignWriting is
politically valuable, but unhelpful for developers.

8. Issues with SignWriting
in Unicode 8
The issue of the moment is sorting,
but there are three main issues.
If we address all of the issues for
SignWriting, the existing International
community of SignWriters is ready, able,
and willing to embrace the standard.

9. Issue 1: Unicode 8 is incomplete
http://signbank.org/SignWriting_Character_Viewer.html
Unicode 8 only encodes
the symbols and ignores
the issue of layout.
Unicode 8 is missing the
structural markers
and number characters
required for 2-D Layout.
Unicode 8 requires SVG
for the visual presentation.
Unicode 8 requires additional
characters/markup to write a sign.

10. Issue 2: Unicode 8 is flawed
The idea of Inherent characters
breaks from the community
use of today and historically.
Because of Inherent modifiers,
sorting is broken, searching is
ambiguous, and replacements
can be destructive.
w s P
Symbol Bases
Tokens
i oSymbol Modifiers
Tokens
identified with a
string of 3 tokens.
w i o
Writing Symbol
P i o
Punctuation Symbol
Fill Rotation
Triadic
Symbol

11. Issue 2: Unicode 8 is flawed
Sorting is broken
1D800 SIGNWRITING HAND-FIST INDEX (HFI)
1DAA1 SIGNWRITING ROTATION MODIFIER-2 (R2)
1DA9B SIGNWRITING FILL MODIFIER-2 (F2)
1. HFI F1 R1
5. HFI F1 R1 HFI F1 R1
2. HFI F1 R2
6. HFI F1 R2 HFI F1 R1
3. HFI F2 R1
7. HFI F2 R1 HFI F1 R1
4. HFI F2 R2
1. HFI
5. HFI HFI
3. HFI F2
7. HFI F2 HFI
4. HFI F2 R2
2. HFI R2
6. HFI R2 HFI
Correct sorting with F1 & R1 Incorrect sorting without F1 & R1
http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15184-signwriting-ducet.txt
http://signpuddle.net/15184-signwriting-ducet-response.txt
http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15202-signwriting-ducet-aux.txt

12. Issue 2: Unicode 8 is flawed
Sorting is broken
1D800 SIGNWRITING HAND-FIST INDEX (HFI)
1DAA1 SIGNWRITING ROTATION MODIFIER-2 (R2)
1DA9B SIGNWRITING FILL MODIFIER-2 (F2)
HFI weight of 100
F2 weight of 420
R2 weight of 410
1. HFI
100
5. HFI HFI
100 100
2. HFI R2
100 410
6. HFI R2 HFI
100 410 100
3. HFI F2
100 420
7. HFI F2 HFI
100 420 100
4. HFI F2 R2
100 420 410
DUCET Fix
Correct sorting with DUCET
1, 5, 2, 6, 3, 7, 4
Correct Sort Order
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Incorrect Sort Order

13. Issue 2: Unicode 8 is flawed
Searching is ambiguous
1D800 SIGNWRITING HAND-FIST INDEX (HFI)
1DAA1 SIGNWRITING ROTATION MODIFIER-2 (R2)
1DA9B SIGNWRITING FILL MODIFIER-2 (F2)
1. HFI F1 R1
5. HFI F1 R1 HFI F1 R1
2. HFI F1 R2
6. HFI F1 R2 HFI F1 R1
3. HFI F2 R1
7. HFI F2 R1 HFI F1 R1
4. HFI F2 R2
1. HFI
5. HFI HFI
3. HFI F2
7. HFI F2 HFI
4. HFI F2 R2
2. HFI R2
6. HFI R2 HFI
Searching with F1 & R1 Searching without F1 & R1
Searching for the symbol
HFI F1 R1 correctly
finds 4 matches
Searching for the symbol HFI
incorrectly finds 10 matches
without negative lookaheads

14. Issue 2: Unicode 8 is flawed
Searching is ambiguous
Query String:
QS10000S20500
Searching for signs that
include 2 exact symbols will
return these results from
the ASL Dictionary.

15. Issue 2: Unicode 8 is flawed
Searching is ambiguous
Plus 6 more pages of signs.
Query String:
QS100uuS205uu
In Unicode 8, searching for a
symbol base without fill or rotation
modifiers will return 6 times as
much noise as signal.

16. Issue 2: Unicode 8 is flawed
Replacements can be destructive
sub uFD830 uFD810 uFD820 by S10000;
sub uFD830 uFD810 uFD821 by S10001;
sub uFD830 uFD810 uFD822 by S10002;
sub uFD830 uFD810 uFD823 by S10003;
sub uFD830 uFD810 uFD824 by S10004;
sub uFD830 uFD810 uFD825 by S10005;
sub uFD830 uFD810 uFD826 by S10006;
sub uFD830 uFD810 uFD827 by S10007;
sub u1DA8B u1DAA7 by S38b07;
sub u1DA8B u1DAA6 by S38b06;
sub u1DA8B u1DAA5 by S38b05;
sub u1DA8B u1DAA4 by S38b04;
sub u1DA8B u1DAA3 by S38b03;
sub u1DA8B u1DAA2 by S38b02;
sub u1DA8B u1DAA1 by S38b01;
sub u1DA8B by S38b00;
https://github.com/Slevinski/signwriting_2010_tools
The TrueType Fonts use Ligatures to support multiple character sets.
Plane 15 Characters Unicode 8 Characters
Increasing symbols keys or
decreasing works without issue.
Decreasing symbol keys
to avoid destruction.

17. Issue 3: Unicode 8 is fictional
Facial diacritics do not exist. There is no font
support, no software support, and no data.
Facial diacritics are described
in one document, using 177 words.
Facial diacritics have never been tested on any
individual, let alone an international group.
Facial expressions are created using
overlap and overlay of many symbols
using Cartesian coordinates for each.
Facial diacritics should
be handled in software
rather than the
character encoding.
Facial diacritics development was
quietly abandoned the end of 2012.

18. Formal SignWriting
Regular Expressions
Query Strings
Community Use
SVG
PUA Plane 15
Graphite Font
Unicode 8 PUA Plane 16TTF
10% to 50% reduction
15 to 50 times expansion
process million of characters per second
search results
15 times expansion
single character per symbolligatures of 1 to 3 characters
twice the size
cartesian coordinates with GPOS
CSS
style text
Isomorphic
JS
ASCII Lite Markup
preferredunused
prototype
6 KB zipped

19. AS18711S20500 M514x517S18711490x483S20500486x506
AS18711S20500M514x517S18711490x483S20500486x506
A S18711 S20500 M514x517 S18711490x483 S20500486x506
M 514x517 S18711 490x483 S20500 486x506
(514,517) (490,483) (486,506)
Time Space
Sequence
Marker
Symbol
Middle Lane
SignBox
Max
Coord
Spatial
Symbol
Community Use
Formal SignWriting
Standard ASCII format is Isomorphic to PUA Plane 15

20. Unicode 9
Regular Expressions
Query Strings
Ideal Solution
Graphite Font TTF
10% to 50% reduction
15 to 50 times expansion
process million of characters per second
search results
cartesian coordinates with GPOS
CSS
style text
http://signpuddle.net/iswa/#smartfont
Prototype Font uses Cartesian coordinates for 2-D layout with Graphite
JS
6 KB zipped

21. Too Late?
SignWriting is spreading around the world and exploding online.
All of the SignWriting projects are using an ASCII solution and
have no plans to switch to the Unicode 8 design for the symbols.
Without a full script solution for SignWriting, Unicode will not be
used for SignWriting, especially the Unicode 8 design which
complicates otherwise simple routines.
Using Unicode for SignWriting is a great idea in theory, but there are
few advantages and too many disadvantages to seriously consider
applying the Unicode 8 design, even if sorting is fixed.
I left the Unicode effort the end of 2011. In 2012, I was shown the
latest proposal (N4342). I objected privately and asked that they
produce a working font before they contact me again.
In 2014, I was contacted that SignWriting will be in Unicode 8. I
reiterated my objections, pointing out the issues, and was told it
was too late to change the design in any way.

22. Discussion Ideas
2-Color Fonts
SignWriting relies on a 2-color font. Currently, SignWriting mimics a 2-color
font by using 2 TrueType Fonts: one for the line and another for the filling. If
you have any experience with 2-color fonts, let’s discuss the possibilities.
2-Dimensional Layout with Graphite and Cartesian coordinates
SignWriting has a prototype font that uses Cartesian coordinates to control the
2-dimensional layout with Graphite and PUA Plane 15 characters. If you have
any experience with 2-dimensional layout using Cartesian coordinates, let’s
discuss the possibilities.
Alternate designs for a 2-dimensional script
This type of discussion is interesting, but it will not effect the SignWriting
community. The standards are stable and widely used. This would make for
an interesting project, but it is not work that I will be doing myself.

23. Discussion Ideas
Unicode 9 or 10
Can we deprecate Unicode 8? The community design has been stable for 3
1/2 years. There is an interested community and there are many possibilities
for 2-Color fonts and 2-Dimensional layout.
Unicode 8
I will not be using Unicode 8. I partially support Unicode 8 with the SignWriting
2010 Fonts, but not the facial diacritics. I suggested that people avoid use
SignWriting in Unicode 8. I’m willing to discuss any of the 3 issues that I have
outlined, but I’m not invested in any tweaks to the Unicode 8 design.
Symbol Encoding Model
PUA Plane 16 (37,811 characters)
Script Encoding Model
PUA Plane 15 (1,179 characters)
both designs are productive and used today

24. Issues with SignWriting
in Unicode 8
by Stephen E Slevinski Jr
http://slevinski.github.io
slevinski@signwriting.org
http://www.slideshare.net/StephenSlevinski/presentations