I have been an encyclopedia enthusiast since 1958, when our neighbours, the Sathers acquired a set of World Book encyclopedias. We acquired our set soon afterwards. In my childhood, I used to take a volume off to bed to read. Then, twenty years later in 1978, Jane Kupfer and Mychael Gleeson gave us a copy of the single volume Random House Encyclopedia on our wedding day. It still has a prominent place on our bookshelf, but in 2025, it has effectively been replaced by Wikipedia.
This is mentioned because Wikipedia articles vary in quality, especially their clarity and ability to inform. Thus, when I wanted to incorporate some basic insights into signed languages in this weblog post, I read what Wikipedia had to say about languages, then had to simplify much of the content to make it intelligible,
Some language insights
Language is a broad term for a linguistic configuration allowing people to communicate. It employs a system of symbols used uniformly by people to communicate intelligibly with each other. Language is distinct from dialect, jargon and vernacular. It refers to a linguistic configurations of vocabulary = a stock of words, syntax = rules and patterns by which sentences and phrases are formed, phonology = distribution and patterning of speech sounds in a language and of the tacit rules governing pronunciation. Signed languages lack phonology.
Dialect is applied to certain forms or varieties of a language, often those that communities or special groups retain even after a standard has been established. They are often geographic.
I would describe my own dialect as Cascadian, although other British Columbians would describe it as West Coast, essentially identical to the Pacific Northwest dialect found in Washington and Oregon states, and with minimal differences to the California dialect found, well, in California. This is totally unsurprising given the history of the area, and American immigration, especially from California after the California Gold Rush.
Some dialects appeal more to me than others. Take for example, Toni Basil, from Los Vegas. Her dialect, on Mickey (1981) always represents my ideal English language dialect, even better than my own. Yes, I am sure that I am not influenced by her Los Vegas High School cheerleader head uniform.
Note: The California goldrush had both positive and negative effects. On the plus side, the sudden influx of gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy; the sudden population increase allowed California to become a state in the Compromise of 1850. The gold rush had severe effects on Native Californians and accelerated the Native American population’s decline from disease, starvation, and the California genocide.
I have noticed, but never commented on, differences between my dialect and that of my relatives in Essex County, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan. I would refer to their speech as a Great Lakes dialect. I can understand them perfectly, but there are some differences. I cannot articulate those differences before I hear them, but I notice them as they are being uttered. Undoubtedly, these same relatives will have a similar reaction to my speech.
Jargon is an artificial linguistic configuration often used by a particular occupational group for communication about occupational matters. Chinook jargon is often used as an example. It originating as a pidgin trade language in the Pacific Northwest. It spread during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to other areas in modern Oregon and Washington, then to British Columbia and parts of Alaska, Northern California, Idaho and Montana.
A pidgin = a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from several languages. A creole language = a stable natural language that develops from the process of different languages simplifying and mixing into a new form (often a pidgin), and then from that expanding into a fully developed language with native speakers, all within a short period.
Vernacular refers to ordinary informal speech in a given language. It is simultaneously in accord with and, in relatively small ways, distinguished from the standard language in syntax, vocabulary, usage and pronunciation. It is used by persons indigenous to a certain community, large or small.
Signed languages
Signed languages are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. They use manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers to express thought. Signed languages are fully developed natural languages with their own grammar = language rules, and lexicon = vocabulary.
Note: Signed languages are not universal and are usually not mutually intelligible. There are similarities among different sign languages.
Linguists consider both spoken and signed communication to be types of natural language. Both emerged through an abstract, protracted aging process and evolved over time without meticulous planning. There is substantial overlap between the neural substrates of signed and spoken language processing, despite obvious differences in modality = form of sensation, here visual rather than through sound.
Interpreters
From about 1982 to 2008 (26 years) I worked with interpreters, on an almost daily basis. The interpreters I used were specially designed computer programs that translated code from a programming language into a machine code, that various types of computers could understand. In some respects these are similar to, but in other respects different from, people who interpret between two human languages.
Deaf people often need an interpreter, for basic tasks. A human or computer-based interpreter, can help deaf people communicate, but they are seldom available. So people end up writing messages, or using children that can hear to interpret. Yes, many deaf people have to rely on writing with a pen on pieces of paper, or messaging with smart phones to communicate.
I don’t understand why this should be the case. Apple’s Siri spun out from the Stanford Research Institute’s Artificial Intelligence Center and is an offshoot of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA)-funded CALO project. SRI International used the NABC Framework to define the value proposition for Siri. It was co-founded by Norwegian Dag Kittlaus (1967 – ), Tom Gruber (1959 – ), and Adam Cheyer (1966 – ). Kittlaus named Siri after a co-worker in Norway; the name is a short form of the name Sigrid, from Old Norse Sigríðr, composed of the elements sigr “victory” and fríðr “beautiful”.
Adam Munder (1976 – ), who presented much of the information here in a TED talk, works as a software engineer in his daily life. He uses two highly qualified interpreters to work with others who have the same degrees, educational background, job responsibilities to solve engineering problems in a competitive environment. His daily collaborations, meetings and presentations rely on his interpreters. He is thankful that his employer ensures access to the same information that his hearing enabled colleagues do.
This is not true for many deaf people throughout the world. Interpreters are expensive and scarce. Adam lives in Arizona, a state with a population of about 7.5 million people in 2024. Of these, more than 1.1 million individuals have a hearing loss. That is about 15% of the population. There are only about 400 licensed interpreters. That is a ratio of 2750 / 1. Americans work up to about 2 000 hours a year. It it were equally divided, that would be about 0.75 hours per deaf person per year.
That means there is a scarcity of tools available, and few options. Until now.
There are about 150 different signed languages throughout the world. One of them, originally called Gestuno, now International Sign, is international in its orientation. It intends to bridge the gap between member of communities who don’t hear, but use different signed languages.
American Sign Language.
American Sign Language (ASL) is the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is expressed by employing both manual and nonmanual features. It is often the basis for creoles used in many countries around the world, is widely learned as a second language, so that it can serve as a common language. ASL is closely related to French Sign Language (LSF).
ASL originated in the early 19th century in the American School for the Deaf (ASD) in Hartford, Connecticut. Since then, ASL use has been propagated widely by schools for the deaf and Deaf community organizations. User estimates vary from 250 000 to 500 000 persons, including children of deaf adults (CODA) and other hearing individuals.
Adam Munder, with others, is building a platform called OmniBridge. Its purpose is to join the deaf world and the hearing world, so that the details and nuances that make people human can be found in conversations.
He says that the OmniBridge team is using the power of AI to analyze thousands of signs in ASL. At one level, the goal seems to be to allow people to engage in conversations, regardless of their language. It is bringing humanity back into conversations, fusing worlds without forcing people to adapt to one other. While there are thousands of ASL signs (which may seem small) ASL is complex, filled with slight nuance and changes in body language. These can change the meaning of a sign from big to enormous.
The machines used to translate ASL to English, and vice versa are AI PCs, These are able to run ASL models locally, without relying on the internet, which dramatically increases accessibility. It is claimed that AI is changing the world. I am not convinced, although I can understand that people would prefer to have the technology they use in their devices, rather than needing an internet connection to communicate. The value of OmniBridge team is that it is using computing power to humanize, include and to level the playing field. It is an attempt to unite two languages, signed and spoken, into one seamless conversation. Let us hope that it does not become a mechanism to transfer wealth from the relatively oppressed, to those with wealth.