Sign language dictionary nearly complete

KUN0011 4 GEN 0259 KUWAIT /KUNA-FQX0 EDU-KUWAIT-SIGN-LANGUAGE Sign language dictionary nearly complete By Muntaha Al-Fadhli KUWAIT, April 18 (KUNA) -- A researcher at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research has announced that preparations for a unified sign language dictionary, for Kuwait and the Arab region, is almost complete after the development of nearly 1,400 signs. In an exclusive interview with Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) on Monday, Ghadah Al-Naqi from the Advanced Systems Department said that in the dictionary, three methods are used to describe each sign, including video footage, photos and hand gestures. "Through this project, we have been able to unify sign language in Kuwait and all other Arab nations, and this dictionary will be a reference for all sign language users in the region," Al-Naqi explained. "This method has proved to be a success and is a great way to explain each sign and its meaning with the utmost precision, particularly since some words are highly descriptive," she added. She did, however, explain that speech through use of the alphabet is entirely different from what this project has undertaken, the latter being the more flexible type of speech that enables the user to engage in a fluent conversation without much difficulty. "Sign language, in essence, is body language, with facial expressions and hand gestures working together to describe a word or fact," Al-Naqi concluded. The KISR unified sign language dictionary project has been financed by the Mobile Telecommunications Company (MTC). (end) mf.naa KUNA 190957 Apr 04NNNN