Hands and Faces: A Preliminary Inventory for Written ASL

American Sign Language (ASL) can be characterized as a face-to-face language; much like other face-to-face languages in Africa and the Americas, ASL has not had a written form. We discuss some characteristics of writing systems, the advantages of writing for a community, and the differences between linguistic transcription and writing for daily use. The remainder of the paper focuses on two aspects of ASL-- handshapes and nonmanual behaviors--that need to be accounted for in any writing system. We discuss the process of selection and classification of items to be represented in a writing system for ASL.