How does sign language compare with gesture, on the one hand, and spoken language on the other? Sign was once viewed as nothing more than a system of pictorial gestures without linguistic structure. More recently, researchers have argued that sign is no different from spoken language, with all of the same linguistic structures. The pendulum is currently swinging back toward the view that sign i...

Sign language recognition is a difficult task, yet required for many applications in real-time speed. Using RGB cameras for recognition of sign languages is not very successful in practical situations and accurate 3D imaging requires expensive and complex instruments. With introduction of Time-of-Flight (ToF) depth cameras in recent years, it has become easier to scan the environment for accura...

Please cite this article in press as: San-Segun j.intcom.2009.11.011 This paper describes the development of a Spoken Spanish generator from sign-writing. The sign language considered was the Spanish sign language (LSE: Lengua de Signos Española). This system consists of an advanced visual interface (where a deaf person can specify a sequence of signs in signwriting), a language translator (for...

Sign languages appear to be the major communication tool for the deaf community. As a minor community, Vietnamese deaf people often have to rely on a small numbers of interpreters who are hearing people knowing sign language in order to communicate with hearing people. It would be very beneficial for deaf as well as hearing people to develop an automated translation system between spoken/writte...

Arabic Sign Language (ArSL) is the native language for the Arab deaf community. ArSL allows deaf people to communicate among themselves and with non-deaf people around them to express their needs, thoughts and feelings. Opposite to spoken languages, Sign Language (SL) depends on hands and facial expression to express the thought instead of sounds. In recent years, interest in translating sign l...

This paper describes a new version of a speech into sign language translation system with new tools and characteristics for increasing its adaptability to a new task or a new semantic domain. This system is made up of a speech recognizer (for decoding the spoken utterance into a word sequence), a natural language translator (for converting a word sequence into a sequence of signs belonging to t...

Visual interpretation of sign language gesture can be useful in accomplishing natural human robot interaction. This paper describes a sign language gesture based recognition, interpreting and imitation learning system using Indian Sign Language for performing Human Robot Interaction in real time. It permits us to construct a convenient sign language gesture based communication with humanoid rob...