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Hi all, My name's Ryan, and I'm trying to start work on the Egyptian SignPuddle, slowly transferring signs from my notebook onto the SignPuddle database. In truth, I'm rather new to SignWriting, and how my studies have led me to this juncture is a bit of a long story. In short, I have limited experience with ASL from grade school hymns and a high school ASL club many years ago. My undergraduate work focused on mathematics and linguistics, as well as Arabic. I've been living in Egypt for the past couple years, studying Arabic while searching for a place to learn Egyptian Sign Language. The bureaucracy here is something of a tortuous and torturous labyrinth, especially for foreigners, and I only managed to start attending weekly Egyptian Sign classes this Spring, mere months before my departure to start a graduate program in Arabic Linguistics back in the US. I hope to return relatively frequently (in intervals of ~6-12 months) for documentation and research on both spoken Egyptian Arabic and Egyptian Sign. Reading over Val's warm/dancing welcome to my inquiry and seeing some of the archived emails, I'm grateful to be part of such a supportive and inquisitive community! Please feel free to contact me via email should you feel the strong and sudden urge to discuss anything pertaining to Arabic, linguistics, Egypt, signing, any combination of those, or anything else, really. Thanks! -Ryan