WorldSign (also called Global Gesture) is a symbol gesture language system largely based on a combination of American Sign Language and North American native sign language. American Sign Lanugage is familiar to many television viewers as closed captioned signing for the deaf. WorldSign also incorporates a few symbols from other gesture systems from around the world, as well as using some original gesture symbols of its own.

WorldSign is designed for personal and global communication between all people, regardless of nationality, native tongue, or disability. Because WorldSign strives to be truely international, it does not use alphabet spelling as part of its system.

The symbol gestures of WorldSign (Global Gesture) are one part of a four part system called SymbolVision. The four interconnected parts of SymbolVision are the symbol gestures of WorldSign, symbol writing and printing, symbol animation and dance-drama.

SymbolVision makes extensive linguistic use of four senses - the kinesthetic sense, and the senses of touch, sight and hearing. The kinesthetic sense refers to an awareness of bodily movements and expressions in communication, both as a person communicating to someone else and as an observer of another person's communication.

SymbolVision is a concept based system that utilizes approximately 1,000 basic concept-ideas, each of which are represented as separate symbols. These individual symbols can be used alone or can be joined together to form thousands of compound symbols.

Each concept-idea has a gestograph, which are graphics (drawings) of stylized gestures. It is the shape and motions within these gestographs which are used in a classification system. This system allows for efficient access to the meaning of an unknown symbol as well as its retrieval for printing. One third of the idea-concepts also have an ideograph (symbols representing ideas) or a pictograph (simplified pictures of objects) which can be used by itself or in combination with its associated gestograph.

One of the strongest features of SymbolVision is its flexibility. It makes use of spoken and written words from many languages. Also, it can use any image or sound that is widely recognized. This means that symbols and symbolic devices from film and comic strips can be used just as easily as those from spoken and written languages.

The use of grammar and syntax within SymbolVision is also remarkably flexible. Most symbols are capable of performing as nouns, verbs or descriptors as required. Also, the syntax (the order in which subject, verb and object are arranged) can be varied, and the meaning will still remain understandable to speakers of very different languages, such as English and Japanese. Through this capability comes the greatest potential of SymbolVision... non-subject-verb-object, non-linear communication, made possible by a multi-media, multi-sensory communication system which uses both the rational and the intuitive parts of the brain.

The use of traditional syntax remains available as well, and can be used where appropriate- for example, in the teaching of English (or any other language) as a second language.

The World Sign Communication Society is in the final stages of developing a symbolary (a dictionary of symbols). A draft version of the symbolary has been in limited circulation for several years. In addition, a computerized version of the symbolary is under development.

In the symbolary, each written symbol gesture has a numerical classification of four circled numbers located beneath it. Each circled number refers to a different characteristic of the gesture. For instance, the first number refers to which of the 23 basic handshapes is being used by the primary gesturing hand, and the second number refers to which of the 23 handshapes is being used by the secondary hand. The third number refers to which view is being taken of the gesture (front view and profile being the most commonly used of nine possible views), and the fourth number refers to a specific type of arrow which represents the actual gestural movement used when the symbol is signed.

The numerical classification system makes it very easy to look up symbols and, once the classification system is fully understood, the meaning of unknown symbols to be quickly grasped just by looking at the numbers displayed underneath.