Bjorkaasen Upper Secondary School for Deaf Youths
Bergen, Norway


Email Messages & Reports
about SignWriting in Norway

...taken from the SignWriting List Archives...


 

April 7, 1998
MESSAGE TO THE SIGNWRITING LIST

SUBJECT: Norwegian at SignWriting Headquarters

From: "Ingvild Roald"
To: DAC@SignWriting.org
Subject: Norwegian at SignWriting headquarters
Date: Tue, 07 Apr 1998

Hi,
I'm Ingvild Roald. I am connected with the Vestlandet Center of Education for the Deaf in western Norway, which is comprised of three schools (nursery through junior college), and also gives advice to teachers and parents throughout the school system, and gives Sign Language Education to parents of deaf children.

Since 1985, part of the courses taken by our students in classes of general academic studies have also been formal sign language studies. Part of this course has been reading and writing signs using SignWriting. In the grade school SignWriting in it's full form has been used occasionally. The people who are giving Sign Language classes to the parents, and who are also advising the teachers in general on Sign Language, have been using a crude form of SignWriting (like what it was at first, back in the late 70s), with some written comments, and have volumes of signs recorded that way.

I myself first came across SignWriting when I visited schools for the deaf in Copenhagen, Denmark, a long time ago. Since then I have been involved in SignWriting work, mostly in translating and adapting the material from the DAC publications, which are in ASL and English, into Norwegian/ Norwegian Sign Language. I also have been making dictionaries of signs for school subjects. We have at the moment about 3000 such signs stored in the SignWriter computer program.

Just now I am visiting Valerie. We are both going to a conference here in San Diego. I'm sure she will post something about that on the list or on the web page eventually.

We are having a good time, and in a few days I will be meeting with the DAC itself.

Bye for now,
Ingvild
ingvild.roald@statped.no
 


April 27, 1999
MESSAGE TO THE SIGNWRITING LIST

SUBJECT: SignWriter Manuals in Norwegian

From: "Ingvild Kristine Roald" <Ingvild.Kristine.Roald@psych.uib.no>
Organization: UiB
To: SignWriting <DAC@signwriting.org>
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999
Subject: SignWriter manuals in Norwegian

Hi all,

yesterday Valerie said that the commands on spoken languages other than English were only on the screen, not in manuals. But since it is a long time ago that we got the first Norwegan translation (for version 3.0!) and also the translation for the 4.x , and with all her workload and everything, it is no wonder she has forgotten. These are not distributed by the DAC or Valerie, but by

Vestlandet Kompetansesenter
Jonas Lies vei 68
N-5058 Bergen, Norway
voice: +47 55 92 34 56
fax: +47 55 91 14 65

They may be of help to Danes and Swedes besides Norwegians, even if the <Alt+letter> commands are different.

There also is a textbook for learning SignWriting, called "To read and write SIGN by Suttons SignWriting", a bit dated, but I hope to start a revision with the help of deaf friends when we have crossed the millenium.

SignWriting has been part of the curriculum for those in the general stream of the upper secondary school for about 10 years now. Only an introduction, but nevertheless. Besides, I have been into classes in the elementary school, showing them some of the features, and the children seem to take to it very fast indeed! After half an hour of instruction, they can read quite complicated sentences with symbols they have not been shown. I think that is great.

Good luck to you all,

Ingvild
ingvild.roald@statped.no

 

 


Download PDFs

NORWAY Poster Presentation
Fagtorg 2005
in Norwegian
sw0328-NO-Poster-Fagtorg-2005.pdf

NORWAY Poster Presentation
Fagtorg 2005
in English
sw0329-NO-Poster-Fagtorg-English.pdf




For more information about
SignWriting in Norway, contact:

Ingvild Roald
Ingvild.Roald@statped.no


Ingvild Roald
Statped Vest (Vestlandet Kompetansesenter)
Vestlandet Resource Center for Deaf Education
Pb. 6039 Bergen Postterminal
NO-5892 BERGEN
Norway
tel. +47 55 92 34 56
sms +47 926 68 420

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