BuHamad - The first Qatari virtual interpreter for Qatari Sign Language

Abstract

As well as all spoken languages, Sign Languages SL have a structured grammar and syntax. Despite that it was visual, multi-dimensional and mainly based on gestures, SL follows specifics grammatical rules. Consequently, the automatic generation of sign language should follow these rules. It’s for this reason that Mada works on the development of a new framework that aims to support researchers and developers to create new innovant tools for deaf. The objective is essentially to create tools that enhance the development of software using grammatically validated sentences. Signed languages are principally based on manual and facial gestures. For this reason, the automatic generation of SL mainly deals with a 3D virtual signer. In fact, the use of avatars presents a mandatory task on SL generation. Since 2019, Mada worked on the design and the development of a personalized Qatari virtual sign language interpreter. The avatar is now published on Mada website it is used to translate the website content to Qatari SL. On this paper we describe the objective of the project, and we illustrate how it was designed.