Human Writing and Machine Encoding

This working paper distinguishes human signed writing from machine encoding in Sutton SignWriting. It argues that SignWriting is first a human writing system and only secondarily a machine-encoded text format. The paper separates written signs, symbol inventories, signboxes, encodings, rendering, styling, layout, search, and analysis as related but distinct layers of signed text. Its central claim is that serialization can support software, exchange, rendering, search, and study without turning plane-based signed writing into line-based writing or replacing authored spatial form with machine representation.