Handspeak
I just found this incredible article on ASLWrite and the signing space at HandSpeak by Jolanta Lapiak : https://www.handspeak.com/learn/411/ I knew handspeak was a dictionary, and I knew it had a few deper article tidbits here and there, many out of my area (child development), but I hadn't explored it enough to be aware of the rich depth of information on the site regarding ASLWrite.
Searching for a dictionary word that would show ASLWrite, which I had seen before on Handspeak and knew there were some, I ran across a few articles. It dawned on me as I browsed that there is a rich section of information here on ASLWrite that is key to its beginnings and development that aren't easily accessible to people like me unless you know to look for it.
Some of these articles (like https://www.handspeak.com/learn/249/ "From signing to writing: a journey, By Jolanta Lapiak") really blow my mind, and I wonder where the archive is where we can find all of these things. Wikipedia, a place where we can often find all things and history, often requires a different level/type of citations which tend to involve mainstream media in a way that leaves out smaller communities.
if I had to guess, there are many niche places where this history is thick and richly documented, but they're places where people like me will have a hard time finding it.
I worry what happens if a site like handspeak goes down. Will this history, this crucial interaction between person and motivation and historical collisions before they're historical disappear? And then I start to go down rabbit holes wanting to talk about every page on the site and all the rich information I'm reading, when really all I want to do is share each piece individually so its easier to take in and I can stay on focus. So the focus of this archival post is the information is the valuable spatial information for ASLWriting in the first link at the top. Its good stuff.
