History
Prior to the widespread recognition of ASL as a bona-fide language in the 1970s, discussion of ASL tended to be limited to English descriptions which made no distinction between ASL signs, cultural gestures, and universal expressions. Another form of notation has been "dictionaries" full of pictures of signs next to single English words.
However, in 1965, when William Stokoe and his team rigorously showed that ASL was a true language, they also pioneered a new kind of notation for ASL - one which attempted to capture in writing the linguistic sub-structure of signs - their morphemes and phonemes (previously also called cheremes for signed languages). Stokoe notation was symbolic, rather than pictorial or English based.
Since Stokoe's research, many more symbolic notation and writing systems have been developed, by both hearing and Deaf, researchers and laypeople. Academic researchers have developed HamNoSys, Valerie Sutton has developed SignWriting, and Sam Supella has developed the ASLphabet. However, pictorial and English-based systems still dominate, and there is still no consensus in either the Deaf community, or amongst linguistic researchers, about how best to put ASL on paper.
In 2012, Robert Arnold began working in partnership with ASLized to promote his book, "The Official American Sign Language Writing Book", and si5s, his system for writing ASL. Recently, an open-source spin-off has developed off of si5s, called ASLwrite, though the two are still very similar. As of April 2015, the si5s/ASLwrite systems seem to have the most popularity so far, with around one thousand "likes" each, followed by SignWriting with around 300 "likes".
However, in 1965, when William Stokoe and his team rigorously showed that ASL was a true language, they also pioneered a new kind of notation for ASL - one which attempted to capture in writing the linguistic sub-structure of signs - their morphemes and phonemes (previously also called cheremes for signed languages). Stokoe notation was symbolic, rather than pictorial or English based.
Since Stokoe's research, many more symbolic notation and writing systems have been developed, by both hearing and Deaf, researchers and laypeople. Academic researchers have developed HamNoSys, Valerie Sutton has developed SignWriting, and Sam Supella has developed the ASLphabet. However, pictorial and English-based systems still dominate, and there is still no consensus in either the Deaf community, or amongst linguistic researchers, about how best to put ASL on paper.
In 2012, Robert Arnold began working in partnership with ASLized to promote his book, "The Official American Sign Language Writing Book", and si5s, his system for writing ASL. Recently, an open-source spin-off has developed off of si5s, called ASLwrite, though the two are still very similar. As of April 2015, the si5s/ASLwrite systems seem to have the most popularity so far, with around one thousand "likes" each, followed by SignWriting with around 300 "likes".