INDIAN SIGN LANGUAGE (ISL) DICTIONARY

Feb. 28, 2019

Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment launched the “2nd Edition of Indian Sign Language (ISL) Dictionary” for Hearing Impaired Persons.

About: 

  • Objective: To give deaf people the constitutional right to speech and opportunity of freedom of expression. 

  • Developed by: Indian Sign Language Research & Training Centre (ISLR&TC) under Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), M/o Social Justice & Empowerment. 

  • Format: 
    • The first edition of the dictionary with 3000 words was launched in March 2018. With the second edition, dictionary includes total 6000 words under the categories of academic, legal, medical, technical and everyday terms. 

    • It has over 6,032 Hindi and English words and their corresponding graphic representation of the signs. It would be available in both print and video formats.



Categories: The ISL dictionary consists of words of five categories: 

  1. Everyday Terms: Terms that are used in everyday communication. 

  2. Legal Terms: Legal terminology like “Affidavit”, “Acquittal”, etc. 

  3. Academic Terms: Concepts from Physics, Geography, Biology, Maths, etc. 

  4. Medical Terms: Medical terminology used in hospitals and in medical situations. 

  5. Technical Terms: Terms that are used in vocational training or in computer courses. 

Source : The Hindu