[Wikipedia-l] Re: new request for ASL/English wikipedia

[Mark Williamson]

In my opinion, the best option is to use sign synthesis software. Each
program tends to use a slightly different notation.

However, in the end it should not be difficult for a native ASL signer
to learn with a little bit of effort.

The advantage to such systems is that only the person writing the
article needs to know the transcription, whereas those viewing the
article can view it in transcription OR by computer-generated signing,
the latter of which will be almost universally comprehensible.

http://s-leodm.unm.edu/signsynth/ (the avatar is a little ugly, but it
serves its purpose)
http://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/eSIGN/Overview.html (experimental)
http://sy.jdl.ac.cn/en/synthesis.asp (Chinese Sign Language only)
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~waleed/gsl-rec/ (sign recognition, rather
than synthesis)

Mark

On 09/09/05, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Paweł Dembowski wrote:
> 
> >> Regardless of the technical means and organization of a signed Wikipedia, I
> >>would encourage people discussing the matter not to use wordings that may
> >>suggest that ASL is not a language in its own right, or that deaf people
> >>have a less fundamental right to acquire knowledge through their own
> >>languages than have hearing people.
> >> Haruo
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Well, the comments are mostly because the person who proposed the new
> >project wanted to include also English language text of the articles,
> >which would basically mean forking. And ASL might be a language, but
> >unless it has also a special writing system, I don't know if it can be
> >created - after all, we do not create Wikipedias for other languages
> >that are only spoken and not written.
> >
> >
> >
> ASL is most certainly a first-class language, but it _must be written_
> to be usable in a text-based system like Wikipedia.
> 
> There are two main ASL writing systems: Stokoe, and SignWriting. If you
> can work out how to make either of these (or any other system I don't
> know about, but is common amongst deaf users of ASL) work with
> Wikipedia, you've got a good chance of getting a consensus to start a
> new Wikipedia for ASL as a first-class written language. Otherwise, all
> you have is the visual equivalent of spoken-word readings of articles in
> other languages: they may be interesting and even useful, but since
> they're not interactive and Wiki-linked, they're not a Wikipedia.
> 
> Your best bet is probably Stokoe, because it's less dependent on graphic
> layout. You could _possibly_ represent Stokoe using Unicode symbols and
> combining character representations, or use the in-built TeX support, or
> you could try ASCII-Stokoe, or writing a custom plugin for a Stokoe-like
> Wikitext.
> 
> SignWriting is altogether a more difficult problem, as the symbols are
> not in most fonts. Something could probably be done with a Wikipedia
> extension that converts some form of TeX-like Wikitext format to
> SignWriting glyphs, either as rendered .png files, or as SVG.
> 
> For an advanced project, you could even consider a SignSynth-like system
> that would automatically sign written Wiki-ASL.
> 
> Are there any written-sign-language experts here?
> 
> -- Neil
> 
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