SignWriting List
February 21, 2011
Hello Stefan and Everyone!
It is February 22 in Germany now....Here in California it is still
February 21st ;-)
Thank you, Stefan, for always remembering my birthday. You have taught
me how important birthdays are...they give us pause, don't they? To think
about what we have done in our years here on this earth, and think about
what we wish for the future...
I will be 60 years old in 16 hours (smile)... a new decade for
me...
and I am planning to live another 60 years, so I am only half way
through and certainly not done!! ha!
And everyone - look at the wonderful card that Stefan wrote - it is
written in ASL in SignWriting on the right, but on the left, Stefan has
written the movements of the lips speaking English words...called
Woehrmann's SpeechWriting, which is Stefan's unique invention, writing the
sounds of the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) with lip, mouth and
breath symbols that are originally based on SignWriting symbols, but Stefan
has expanded the amount of symbols further, to be able to capture the
refined movements of speech...and Stefan has developed a standardized way to
write the movements of speech around the world -
Recently, Fernando Capovilla from Brazil has been working with Stefan
behind the scenes, and Stefan developed a way to write spoken Portuguese
with the feedback of Fernando's team in Brazil - it is just so amazing to
watch all these brilliant people work together -
So thank you, Stefan, for writing my birthday wishes, and my name, in
Mundbildschrift (SpeechWriting)... I will treasure the card always ;-)
Val ;-)