The University of Namur has developed a bilingual French-sign language dictionary that users can consult in both languages, a world first. The tool is interactive and has been built using facial recognition software.
A free tool presented on Wednesday by the university included 4,600 signs, words and expressions. This dictionary is the result of four years of work carried out by a team of linguistics and computer science researchers.
Concretely, the user will be able to use sign language in front of the camera of his computer. It will get the searched word and the contexts in which it can be used. If they encode a word in the search engine, they will then have its translation in sign language in the form of a video.
“Until now, the linguistic tools allowing a bilingual sign language-French translation were few and their functionalities were limited,” explained Laurence Meurant, linguist in charge of the Sign language laboratory of French-speaking Belgium.
“We were inspired by the principle of Linguee to allow users to use words appropriately in various contexts, drawn from spontaneous conversations,” she added. More than 88 hours of conversations between 100 signers were filmed and recorded. The database includes 18,872 sentences, represented by 4,600 different signs.
“This tool required web engineering work to allow a powerful and fluid platform to use,” said Anthony Cleve, Professor of computer science and one of the pilots of the project.
“We also relied on the latest advances in artificial intelligence to develop facial recognition software.” A dictionary accessible free of charge on the website.