SemSignWriting: A Proposed Semantic System for Arabic Text-to-SignWriting Translation

Ameera M.  Almasoud; Hend S.  Al-Khalifa

doi:10.4236/jsea.2012.58069

Ameera M. Almasoud^*, Hend S. Al-Khalifa^*

Abstract: 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 language automatically for different languages has increased. However, a small set of these works are specialized in ArSL. Basically, these works translate word by word without taking care of the semantics of the translated sentence or the translation rules of Arabic text to Arabic sign language. In this paper we present a proposed system for semantically translating Arabic text to Arabic SignWriting in the jurisprudence of prayer domain. The system is designed to translate Arabic text by applying Arabic Sign Language (ArSL) grammatical rules as well as semantically looking up the words in domain ontology. The results of qualitatively evaluating the system based on a SignWriting expert judgment proved the correctness of the translation results.

Keywords: SignWriting; Arabic Sign Language; Deaf; Semantic Web; Ontology

Cite this paper: A. Almasoud and H. Al-Khalifa, "SemSignWriting: A Proposed Semantic System for Arabic Text-to-SignWriting Translation," Journal of Software Engineering and Applications, Vol. 5 No. 8, 2012, pp. 604-612. doi: 10.4236/jsea.2012.58069.

References

[1] P. V. Paul, “Language and Deafness,” Jones & Bartlett Learning, Burlington, 2008.

[2] J. Martin, “About the Stokoe System,” 2010. http://www.signwriting.org/forums/linguistics/ling006.html

[3] “About the HamNoSys System,” 2011. http://www.signwriting.org/forums/linguistics/ling007.html

[4] A. Almohimeed, M. Wald and R. Damper, “An Arabic Sign Language Corpus for Instructional Language in School,” 2010. http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/21106/

[5] M. Abu Shaira, “The Effect of SignWriting on the Achievement and Vocabulary Acquiring for Deaf Student at Al-Amal School for Deaf in Amman City,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Jordan University, Amman, 2007.

[6] A. M. Almasoud and H. S. Al-Khalifa, “A Proposed Semantic Machine Translation System for translating Arabic text to Arabic sign language,” The 2nd Kuwait e-Services and e-Systems Conference, New York, 5-7 April 2011. doi:10.1145/2107556.2107579

[7] V. Sutton, “SignWriting,” 2010. http://www.signwriting.org/

[8] R. F. de Brito and A. T. C. Pereira, “A Model to Support Sign Language Content Development for Digital Television,” 2009 IEEE International Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing, Rio De Janeiro, 5-7 October 2009, pp. 1-6. doi:10.1109/MMSP.2009.5293266

[9] S. Morrissey, “Data-Driven Machine Translation for Sign Languages,” Ph.D. Thesis, Dublin City University, Dublin, 2008.

[10] L. Lesmo, A. Mazzei and D. Radicioni, “Linguistic Processing in the Atlas Project,” SLTAT 2011, Berlin, 2011.

[11] L. Lesmo, A. Mazzei and D. P. Radicioni, “Linguistic Descriptions in Ontology-Based Machine Translation,” In: B. Kokinov, A. Karmiloff-Smith and N. J. Nersessian, Eds., European Perspectives on Cognitive Science, 2011.

[12] A. S. Ahmed and D. S. K. Seong, “SignWriting on Mobile Phones for the Deaf,” Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Mobile Technology, Applications & Systems—Mobility, Bangkok, 25-27 October 2006, p. 28.

[13] T. Matsumoto, M. Kato and T. Ikeda, “JSPad: A Sign Language Written Tool Using SignWriting,” Proceedings of the 3rd International Universal Communication Symposium, Tokyo, 3-4 December 2009, p. 363. doi:10.1145/1667780.1667855

[14] V. Sutton and S. Slevinski, “SignPuddle Reference Manual,” 2010. http://www.signbank.org/signpuddle/

[15] M. Mohandes, “Automatic Translation of Arabic Text to Arabic Sign Language,” AIML 06 International Conference, Sharm El Sheikh, 13-15 June 2006, pp. 71-76.

[16] A. Alnafjan, “Tawassol,” Master Project, King Saud University, Riyadh, 2008.

[17] S. Samreen and M. Benali, “The Rules of United Qatari Arabic Sign Language,” 2009.