Hi all. My first email was copied to the person who originally enquired, and they've now replied directly to me; I get the impression from this that they may not be subscribed to the list.

As such, I've let them know how to read the archives on the web and subscribe themselves, and I'm taking the liberty of forwarding their followup message to the list so that people can see it.

If you reply, might be helpful to copy comments to the address below.

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: HHamilto@doe.k12.ga.us HHamilto@doe.k12.ga.us Date: 09-Sep-2005 16:50 Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] new request for ASL/English wikipedia To: andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk

There are approximately 500,000 users of American Sign Language(ASL) in the United States and many more in Canada. We will not merely be adding sign language to articles but providing a Wikipedia in a separate language(ASL) just as separate Wikpedias are available for German, French, etc.... The English text article will be available as deaf users of ASL are bilingual with varying levels of reading English. The average deaf adult reads at about the 4th grade level http://gri.gallaudet.edu/Literacy/#reading . Thus much of the internet and encyclopedias in general are inaccessible to these users due to the level of reading required. A survey of the readability of internet sites showed popular sites such a the NY Times and Nickelodeon were above 4th grade level (www.readability.info). The article on cats from Wikipedia receives the following scores

Readability report for The cat in wikipedia.doc readability grades: Kincaid: 11.0 ARI: 12.2 Coleman-Liau: 13.4 Flesch Index: 52.5 Fog Index: 14.4 Lix: 49.1 = school year 9 SMOG-Grading: 12.8 As you can see these are all well above the 4th grade level. Although simple.wikipedia.org strives to provide a version of English that is easier to read it does not totally meet the needs of deaf users. The readability of the "cat" article in simple wikipedia hovers at or slightly above the 4th grade level on 2 measures of readability and is above 7th grade on 3 measures of readability.

Readability report for A cat in simple wikipedia.doc readability grades: Kincaid: 4.6 ARI: 3.9 Coleman-Liau: 7.7 Flesch Index: 85.4 Fog Index: 7.4 Lix: 27.0 = below school year 5 SMOG-Grading: 7.7 To make information accessible to deaf users ASL video is necessary that accompanies the English text. An ASL-English bilingual Wikipedia would provide deaf users with a tool for not only acquiring general world knowledge via an accessible medium (American Sign Langauge) but also a powerful educational tool for enhancing literacy by being able to compare the ASL video and English text. Also, articles could be written tailored to the reading level of deaf readers, rather than muddling through the text of another wikipedia. A tool is also available for users to access the signs for each word of the English text. It is MySignLink and is available for free at www.aasdweb.com.MySignLink . An ASL-English Wikipedia will also provide deaf students with a national project that all students can contribute to while producing their everyday reports for their classes in Social Studies, Science, etc… It will be a great motivator for students to produce a product that is actually of use to others and a great lesson for them to learn that their labor can help others. The deaf community can also produce articles. A deaf fly fisherman in Montana may want to add an article on fly fishing or trout via ASL. It will be a source of pride in the deaf community. I hope you will agree that American Sign Language needs a home of its own.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

(in reply to http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-September/041425.html )

Thanks all,