Mark Williamson wrote:
I think the most viable system is Stokoe (with the modifications used in the BSL dictionary). It is by far the easiest to learn and doesn't use more than a couple of non-latin glyphs (the problem is the positioning of subscript and superscript clusters and diacritics).
Few people write signed languages at all, and when they do they usually use the "gloss" method (ie, word-for-word translation into the national spoken language). After this the most popular is Sutton SignWriting which I personally despise for various reasons, then Stokoe, then personal systems (yes, prior to Stokoe and SSW some people wrote signed languages using systems they invented themselves), then HamNoSys (based on Stokoe, but capable of much more detail, perhaps paralell to Stokoe not distinguishing from allophones but HNS distinguishing; mostly used in academic circles).
The important question is: what do our potential deaf users _themselves_ want? Then we can worry about who's going to find the motivation to adapt the software appropriately to support their needs.
Given the choice of an underlying notation, a nice general way to proceed would to be able to define a vocabulary in some notation, and to then reference that vocabulary using {{template}}s, thus allowing the re-use of the quite complex gestural symbols units that make up sign language. Multi-layered templates could allow whole phrases or sentences to be built up.
Presumably the Holy Grail of any such notation would be that it would be expressive enough to allow the generation of sign-language animations at some later date...
-- Neil