Re:The race to teach sign language to computers
by cowboysauce on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @04:09PM
(#26404294)
Most people who know ASL can also communicate in English, but language skills are a spectrum and some people may know enough to get by in daily life, but may not know enough English to understand more complicated topics. It's really no different than a native Spanish speaker living in the United States. Some may only know a basic level of English while others may be equally comfortable in both languages.
This isn't even unique to the Deaf community. Something like 15 to 20 percent of the general population are considered functionally illiterate.
It really seems to me you are implying they can't read regular English - doesn't that make regular life quite a challenge? I would have assumed learning written English would be high priority.
Your answer just makes me even more confused. If they can't read English, what is the computer translating the sign language into? What are they doing with the results?
And this just brings up even more questions - how do they speak remotely to people? I was thinking that a video phone was an amazing advance, except you'd have to put the phone several feet away from you, making it pretty hard to see the screen.
Every single scenario I'm thinking of just makes the need for written language even more critical - otherwise such a person is almost entirely isolated, except when near other signing people.