A lot of this is in the group description but I also want to make sure its a post, for clarity.

ASLWrite is a little known writing system for American Sign Language and its variants. It can also be known as SLWrite because it can be adapted to other signing systems.

Even though I write in PSE with ASL features I’m going to be using ASLWrite instead of SLWrite because it is more recognizeable to the general public as being for and about sign language. However, my personal preference is to call it SLWrite because it feels more inclusive of the common sign language variants, including PSE/PSL, the dreaded See etc. in use in communities that also use ASL. (

Fun fact, ASL is common in many countries other than the united states, including non English speaking countries, and ASL and the sign languages for some other English speaking countries don’t really look anything alike, such as ASL and BSL (american sign language and british sign language).

ASLWrite is in use by a portion of the signing community but it is a very small portion. Because of this there isn’t a large enough body of work to have all of its written vocabulary and grammatical features settled.

Its really important that if you are trying a new word or to write a new sign that you go to slwrite.org to discuss with active participants whether you have it right, need to make changes or feedback. And that you don’t put any ASLWrite into ai as ai loop feedback could destroy the development and progress.

I’m going to do that again with italics

Its really important that if you are trying a new word or to write a new sign that you go to slwrite.org to discuss with active participants whether you have it right, need to make changes or feedback. And that you don’t put any ASLWrite into ai as ai loop feedback could destroy the development and progress.

once more with bold

Its really important that if you are trying a new word or to write a new sign that you go to slwrite.org to discuss with active participants whether you have it right, need to make changes or feedback. And that you don’t put any ASLWrite into ai as ai loop feedback could destroy the development and progress.

Thats how important it is.

However, if people who sign don’t use it, we’ll lose it.

Which brings me to why I’ve created this group (and another one on another instance for my personal writing journey). The original source of information was ASLWrite.com. Its still up, but since it is run by one person when it got to be too much it was parked with a direction towards facebook.

Now years, and huge portions of rich information later, facebook nuked this super admins account taking all of her work with her. Its all gone, lost to a bizarre bot decisions by the fb’s ai bot system. And this is tragic.

The super admin and some core users have been migrated to www.slwrite.com but it has the same vulnerabilities as facebook and the website (much of the material is depending on one or two people to maintain in the public sphere) with the added barrier that it is now behind a sign-in wall. Its free, but you have to make an account which I think makes it less accessible to the general public (especially the signing public, for whom this writing system can be incredibly helpful).

A/SLwrite can’t maintain its place, and grow and spread, without users. The current social media landscape is not only choking its users but erasing its existence (see the ASLWrite Wikipedia page which someone noiminated for deletion).

For me, coming to the fediverse is an attempt to diversify the locations that materials are found at so that users or potential users can find it, and so that it is not erased from history should the current framework maintainer pass away.

And specifically this group is to help people learn to write it.

Its not easy to learn as something new (and I think most reading and writing isn’t), and it does have a learning curve, but once you get some basics under your belt it can help you as a student, a teacher, or in everyday tasks (we text with it).

In order to encourage that reading and writing this group is for writing prompts. BUT since its such a nascent writing system there just aren’t enough familiar users, and most certainly not in the fediverse, it can be a barrier to do more complex writing tasks we might take for granted with other languages.

That is why the writing prompts here will be much more simplistic, and I encourage you as you make your attempts to keep it simple. The better your foundation, the more complex work you will be able to successfully write down the line.

Back to the vein of the fact that it is a changing and evolving system based on use, especially by signing competent users, be aware that a sign word written here tomorrow might end up being completely different in two years.

There might also end up being more than one way to write that sign (like how some people spell okay, ok, k, kk, OK, or O.K. (to me the last two look weird, but you can still find style dictionaries that insist the last two are the correct way to truncate it), with or w/ (short hand in english; I have my own shorthands for writting certain signs).

New grammar marks might arise and old ones be discarded (this happened between si5 and ASLWrite, which is an entirely different post). This doesn’t make learning to write hopeless, it makes it exciting to be part of getting it to where it can best flourish and be used by communities.