My name is Valerie Sutton and I was just
asked: “What are my expectations for the
future of the SignWriting system?” Thank
you for that broad
question. I must tell you that I spent
most of my
life, not really knowing how long I would
be here, because I had other problems
with health issues. It's no big melodrama.
It's just simply true.
Every time something
happened, instead of feeling fearful or
sad, I would just say, well okay, if that's
the way it is, I have my
computer, so I can write and so I wrote
sign language and I believed in the
invention because I had seen it work
with so many people over the years. So
many
wonderful deaf people in the Deaf
Community and so many wonderful native signing
hearing people and so many wonderful
hearing teachers who were supportive. All
of them chipping in and saying yes, let's
write sign language, and they were really
nice to me. They backed me in my ideas
and I felt blessed to be able to do
something positive possibly. We don't
know in life
what our real path is. Maybe that's just
as well. Do you really want to know the
future? but there is one thing that I do
know. I can “feel” and I have felt all my
life that there was a Master Plan for
SignWriting. For some reason, as soon as
I started writing signs at the
University of Copenhagen, I got a feeling
inside of me that was so
profound that I knew that I would never
let the idea go. Even when, in the
beginning, the very wonderful researchers
who hired me were actually against
writing it as a language, just because
they had never thought of the idea, and
they only wanted a research tool. They
weren't planning to have it something
used everyday, uh with people who use
the language, but over time it changed
and the world changed too. Not just
because I was in it, but because the
world changed. We all wanted to start
writing sign languages and so it was
like, I had a family here on the internet.
All of you, you're like my family. It’s so
nice and you can contact me and I can
contact you and we can even write in
Sign Language together. So what do I
think the future of SignWriting is? I
think that, as time goes by, people will
get more and more respect for all
languages that have written forms and
sign languages are 300 of them and they
all have the potential for a written
form because SignWriting technically
can write any sign language in the world
world since it's writing body movement,
writing what we “see and feel”. So
therefore, you tell me what the future
expectations of SignWriting are? What do
you think it can do for you?  It can bring
you literature. It can bring you
information about the world. It can bring
respect for your language from people
whom you don't know, and it can give you
a way to express yourself.
And so it is. My hope and dream that 
SignWriting will truly build a huge library
of literature for the world and that
sign languages will slowly but surely
truly
be
be written languages on the internet, in
Search Fields through
animation and even when you're looking
at a video, it could just automatically
give you the SignWriting
captions. I want to thank everybody who
works with me. You have given my life
great joy, and I hope in return that 
SignWriting can also give all of you great
joy. I hope that you'll keep in touch
with me and I know that we have a bright
future together.
Bye-bye.