<P> Although there is no well - established writing system for ASL, written sign language dates back almost two centuries . The first systematic writing system for a sign language seems to be that of Roch - Ambroise Auguste Bébian, developed in 1825 . However, written sign language remained marginal among the public . In the 1960s, linguist William Stokoe created Stokoe notation specifically for ASL . It is alphabetic, with a letter or diacritic for every phonemic (distinctive) hand shape, orientation, motion, and position, though it lacks any representation of facial expression, and is better suited for individual words than for extended passages of text . Stokoe used this system for his 1965 A Dictionary of American Sign Language on Linguistic Principles . </P> <P> SignWriting, proposed in 1974 by Valerie Sutton, is the first writing system to gain use among the public and the first writing system for sign languages to be included in the Unicode Standard . SignWriting consists of more than 5000 distinct iconic graphs / glyphs . Currently, it is in use in many schools for the Deaf, particularly in Brazil, and has been used in International Sign forums with speakers and researchers in more than 40 countries, including Brazil, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Tunisia, and the United States . Sutton SignWriting has both a printed and an electronically produced form so that persons can use the system anywhere that oral languages are written (personal letters, newspapers, and media, academic research). The systematic examination of the International Sign Writing Alphabet (ISWA) as an equivalent usage structure to the International Phonetic Alphabet for spoken languages has been proposed . According to some researchers, SignWriting is not a phonemic orthography and does not have a one - to - one map from phonological forms to written forms . This assertion has been disputed and the process for each country to look at the ISWA and create a phonemic / morphemic assignment of features of each sign language was proposed by researchers Msc . Roberto Cesar Reis da Costa and Madson Barreto in a thesis forum on June 23, 2014 . The SignWriting community has an open project on Wikimedia Labs to support the various Wikimedia projects on Wikimedia Incubator and elsewhere involving SignWriting . The ASL Wikipedia request was marked as eligible in 2008 and the test ASL Wikipedia has 50 articles written in ASL using SignWriting . </P> <P> The most widely used transcription system among academics is HamNoSys, developed at the University of Hamburg . Based on Stokoe Notation, HamNoSys was expanded to about 200 graphs in order to allow transcription of any sign language . Phonological features are usually indicated with single symbols, though the group of features that make up a handshape is indicated collectively with a symbol . </P> <P> Several additional candidates for written ASL have appeared over the years, including SignFont, ASL - phabet, and Si5s . </P>

Who brought french sign language to the u.s. and is known as the father of asl