Improved Hand Animation for American Sign Language

American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language used by members of the North American Deaf community and is the third most widely used language in the United States [Ster96][Deaf00]. At present, deaf people rely on sign language interpreters for access to spoken English. The cost and limited availability of interpreters has contributed to isolation for many in the deaf community. A pioneering effort to make English accessible to the deaf community was closed captioning on television. This is an incomplete solution because closed-captioning requires reading skills that are beyond many in the deaf community. Since ASL is very different linguistically from English.[Klim79][Vall93], most native adult ASL signers read English at the third or fourth grade level [Holt94]. We believe that a technology that translates English into ASL, especially for conversation, would provide greater freedom and privacy, and greater opportunity for the deaf. For example, medical and legal matters could be transacted doctor-topatient or attorney-to-client without the need for an interpreter. A personal digital translator that would translate English into American Sign Language, would better bridge the gulf between deaf and hearing worlds.While there are currently many different approaches to the digital presentation of ASL, from video clips of ASL signs to letter-for-letter translation of English to still images of fingerspelling handshapes, we believe that the best approach is animated three-dimensional computer graphics (CG). The nature of conversation requires the type of flexibility that CG can provide. This paper describes one of the crucial components of a future …