New Delhi, March 23: After waiting for a long time, sighting to enable the use to provide the disabled people with their own dictionary, the wait is finally over. Aiming to eradicate the communication barriers between the deaf and hearing communities, the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment launched the ‘First Sign Language Dictionary’ in New Delhi, today.
Inaugurating the First Sign Language Dictionary comprising of 3000 words by, Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, Thaawarchand Gehlot, the dictionary was designed by Indian Sign Language Research & Training Centre (ISLR&TC) under Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), and Department of Social Justice and Empowerment.
Addressing the occasion Ghelot said that ISL Dictionary has been developed to overcome communication barriers between the deaf and hearing communities as it is focused on providing more information in Indian sign language. The dictionary will give Deaf people the constitutional right to speech and opportunity of freedom of expression and also bring them into the main stream of the society.
ISLR&TC had been working on developing the Indian Sign Language Dictionary for last one and a half years.
There are many people facing communication difficulties in India. ISLRTC, New Delhi realizing the magnitude of the situation and issues being faced by the large number of Deaf people in common communication took up the responsibility to develop the dictionary.
ISL dictionary consists of five categories of words for example legal terms, medical terms, academic terms, technical terms and daily use words. The videos are also subtitled. The English and Hindi terms in the dictionary will help children learn English as well.