Development and maintenance of online sign language dictionary

Project owner: Hallatlan Foundation

Responsible person: Mr. Pál Bartos

2011

1,000 Euro Prize

HU

Civil Society / Social Economy

What is it about?

The purpose of the project is the quality development of the sign language education, the accessibility for communication, the support of sign language education by IT applications, so the support of hard of hearing and deaf people social integration. We developed an online sign language dictionary that helps the deaf, the hard of hearing people and their relatives, friends to check a word’s fingerspell through internet or on smartphone.

Appreciation of the Jury

Since sign language is not very widespread outside of the world of the hearing impaired, the online dictionary is a fantastic aid to enormously improve everyday communication with those who can hear. The widespread availability of internet access means that use of the dictionary is very low-threshold. Translations can be accessed quickly almost everywhere and the available word count is constantly being increased. Sign language is therefore becoming a normal national foreign language. The dictionary is currently only available in Hungarian but will hopefully soon encompass other languages.