Editing SignWriting (section)

== Unicode ==

{{main|Sutton SignWriting (Unicode block)}}

SignWriting is the first writing system for sign languages to be included in the [[Unicode|Unicode Standard]]. 672 characters were added in the [[Sutton SignWriting (Unicode block)]] of Unicode version 8.0 released in June 2015.  This set of characters is based on SignWriting's standardized symbol set<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.signbank.org/iswa |title=ISWA 2010 |publisher=Signbank.org |date=2012-01-12 |access-date=2012-05-21}}</ref> and defined character encoding model.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-slevinski-formal-signwriting |title=Formal SignWriting |publisher=IETF |date=2016-12-22|access-date=2017-06-05}}</ref><ref name="EversonUnicode">{{cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2012/12321-n4342-signwriting.pdf|title=Proposal for encoding Sutton SignWriting in the UCS|last1=Everson|first1=Michael|last2=Slevinski|first2=Stephen|last3=Sutton|first3=Valerie|access-date=1 April 2013}}</ref>

The Unicode Standard only covers the symbol set.  It does not address layout, the positioning of the symbols in two dimensions.  Historically, software has recorded position using [[Cartesian coordinates|Cartesian (''x''–''y'') coordinates]] for each symbol.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-slevinski-signwriting-text-01#section-1.2| title = The SignPuddle Standard for SignWriting Text| date = 9 May 2013| last1 = Jr| first1 = Stephen E. Slevinski}}</ref>  Since Unicode focuses on symbols that make sense in a one-dimensional plain-text context, the number characters required for two-dimensional placement were not included in the Unicode proposal.<ref name="EversonUnicode" />

The Unicode block for Sutton SignWriting is U+1D800&ndash;U+1DAAF:

{{Unicode chart Sutton SignWriting}}

Current software records each sign as a [[Formal language|string of characters]] in either ASCII or Unicode.  Older software may use XML or a custom binary format to represent a sign.  Formal SignWriting uses ASCII characters to define the two-dimensional layout within a sign and other simple structures.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-slevinski-formal-signwriting-03#section-2.1.6| title = Formal SignWriting section 2.1.6| date = 20 July 2017| last1 = Jr| first1 = Stephen E. Slevinski}}</ref>  It would be possible to fully define a sign in Unicode with seventeen additional characters.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2017/17220-signwriting-design-opt.pdf|title=L2/17-220: Design Options for Sutton SignWriting with examples and fonts|date=2017-07-12|first=Stephen E. Jr|last=Slevinski}}</ref>  With either character set (Unicode or ASCII), the spelling of a sign produces a word that the can be efficiently processed with regular expressions.  These sets are [[isomorphism|isomorphic]].