Interactive Sign Language Learning System

Abstract

Sign language is the major communication tool among deaf people. However, in Hong Kong, this language is marginalizing as only ~9000 out of ~100,800 hearing impaired people can do sign language natively [1]. The main reason is the acquired deaf people, who lost the hearing function because of accident or degeneration, cannot easily find the way to learn sign language. Besides, majority of citizens have difficulty of understanding or using the signs as they are primarily using speech or text in socializing. Other than that, Hong Kong is unexpectedly falling behind other cities or countries such as Taiwan, Britain, USA, Japan and even China, where they have their own sign recognition system developed. In order to help the people in need to adopt the new environment and understand the sign language as well as populating the endangered language, an Interactive Sign Language Recognition System (ISLLS) would be helpful for people to learn and recognize the basic signs in an easy way. It aims to provide a low cost platform for Hong Kongers to learn the sign language interactively and efficiently by using an inexpensive web camera. The system provides video demonstration for users to learn the signs and users can evaluate their understanding by doing the tutorial in front of the camera instead of answering boring multiple choices or fill in the blank questions.