Wikipedia Encyclopedia in American Sign Language

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Pharos

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You may be familiar with Wikipedia, the free volunteer-written encyclopedia, which exists in many languages. The English Wikipedia is at Main Page - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's the goal of the Wikimedia Foundation (the non-profit which runs Wikipedia) to offer an encyclopedia to every person in the world in their native language- and this includes languages that haven't traditionally been written, such as Romany (Gypsy) language, as well as languages where the great majority of the community is bilingual, such as Yiddish.

There is currently a proposal for a Wikipedia in American Sign Language, and I thought that people should be aware of this, as the Wikipedia model relies entirely on ground-up participation.

The proposal is here:
Requests for new languages/Wikipedia American Sign Language 2 - Meta

The idea currently would be that video would exist as an adjunct to text in the different sign writing systems, just as there are sound files of English Wikipedia articles, so the product would be accessible to all.

Of course sign writing systems are very marginal currently, but here they would still serve an important function. The Wikipedia model itself relies on collaboratively written text, which is not possible with videos. There will also be people who can transcribe sign from video contributions.

I think you might find it a worthwhile experience to help with the development of such a work, which, though it might take special effort to contribute to, will be accessible to all through videos.

It would be great if you could share this information with others through forums and mailing lists, and please comment at the proposal page (just click "edit"). The more people who express an interest there, the greater chance this has of being approved by the Wikimedia Foundation.

I will be glad to answer any questions you may have - either on this forum, through e-mail, or on the ASL Encyclopedia proposal page.
 
Considering how limited any form of written ASL is (both in terms of expression and in terms of people who can understand it), I think the only effective way of creating an ASL version of Wikipedia would be through video clips. Sign Writing is interesting and all but I don't know any deaf people who use it.
 
Of course spoken languages have their nuances too, but over time people have built up a literary register for written languages. It won't be easy, but it is doable for sign languages as well. Remember, there was a time when Western Europeans thought only Latin was suitable for writing.

But I think I've talked too much about writing systems. The most important aspect of this project will be the videos (the "product" side of the encyclopedia), which will be open to everyone who understands ASL.

And it will certainly be possible for people who don't know SignWrighting to contribute to the project - for example, by uploading a video that can be transcribed and rewritten by others, using the magic of collaborative text editing that makes Wikipedia work. And then someone else could upload a video of the revised, improved text.
 
For me, I rather to read in full english website, not need ASL...

ASL is good for communication, that all.
 
We shouldn't make everything in ASL. It'd make deaf people *VERY* complacent when it comes to written English language. We have to keep on fostering our reading comphrehension.

Remember, ASL is a visual language. It is for in lieu of spoken language for which us deaf people would render worthless. It should never replace English language.
 
As long as it is in video not in the written form, then it sounds like a great idea.
 
Pharos said:
Of course spoken languages have their nuances too, but over time people have built up a literary register for written languages. It won't be easy, but it is doable for sign languages as well. Remember, there was a time when Western Europeans thought only Latin was suitable for writing.

But I think I've talked too much about writing systems. The most important aspect of this project will be the videos (the "product" side of the encyclopedia), which will be open to everyone who understands ASL.

And it will certainly be possible for people who don't know SignWrighting to contribute to the project - for example, by uploading a video that can be transcribed and rewritten by others, using the magic of collaborative text editing that makes Wikipedia work. And then someone else could upload a video of the revised, improved text.
Click to expand...

Yes, but spoken languages, both in their oral and written forms are linear. ASL is not linear, but spatial. The only forms of signed languages that are linear, are the Manually Coded English systems. In which case, an English translation in the written form would be appropriate. ASL would be appropriate in video form only, if one is to remain true to the language system.
 
The way I look at as ASL is for communication in signing, not written. Written will not make any sense and also not clarify and does leading alot of misunderstanding.
 
There is a possibility that ASL can be written in English or any other language but written language is usually not a definite way of translating ASL. However, ASL and English (or non-English) can be misinterpreted. For example, a person will sign "The room is big." In English, we think "yeah, the room is big" but in ASL, we sign something like "The room is BIG" (with exaggerated facial expressions and mouthing "cha" to emphasize how BIG the room is). When translating this into a written-language, it would be something like "The room is really, really, really big" or "The room is huge." There are possibilities of misinterpretations that can occur especially when it comes to classifiers such as asking for directions to a certain place, describing a car engine, or a nuclear planet. So having ASL into a written language is not always the best case.

Just like Mr. Thompson said in WSJ.com, "ASL is much more expressive than written English" (Sign of the Times: Video, Email Are Boons to the Deaf - WSJ.com)
 
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