[endisneigh]

What's surprising about this to me is that ASL has no written form. I found si5s but it doesn't seem incredibly mainstream. I'm curious how people who speak primarily with ASL interact on the internet.

How do people who speak with ASL communicate over long distances without video, if not text? An AMA would be appreciated.

An interesting idea would be processing subtitles to some sort of digital mannequin that makes all of the gestures. I imagine you'd do this by coding all of the sign and finding all of the appropriate mappings, a la translation.

[klyrs]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_relay_service

Deaf people were using video to communicate over long distances way before most of us were even aware that was possible. A lot of thought and engineering went into these systems, to make them responsive enough for real time communication. Unfortunately, that technology is being phased out in favor of inferior tech that works over IP. Due to the nature of the protocol, it's quite bad for real time communication -- hearing people are generally satisfied with Zoom because they're using it for audio and a low quality / high latency video feed is tolerable.

[lupire]

Text and spoken language are extremely linear.

Visual and sign language are extremely spatial, like in Arrival / Story of Your Life. ASL is not signed one word at a time.

Automated translation is difficult, because ASL is not Signed English, it doesn't translate word for word.

Deaf people can (and usually do) learn to read and write the local language.

[Jarwain]

ASL is usually "spoken" by the deaf or hard-of-hearing right? For the most part I imagine text would satisfy most cases.

This product's offering seems to be focused on how ASL can deliver on pitch/tone/emphasis/emotion in a way transcription currently doesn't, thus "subtitles aren't sign languahe"

[smegsicle]

not to mention that watching a video with subtitles means glancing at the text when a new line comes up, while watching a video with a signing translator means having to glance at the signer for every single word, right?

[ksaj]

A person who signs regularly can do reasonably well from the "corner of the eye" because they speak / sign in groups all the time. Reading text is not anywhere near as efficient, in terms of understanding while watching other activities going on at the same time.

Also, because it isn't Signed English (which is actually a thing) there is a specific grammar to it that makes it super efficient. That's why it often looks like the signer on political broadcasts isn't telling the whole story, when in fact they might even be telling more of it than text alone could convey.

I have a number of deaf friends and acquaintances (I'm almost deaf in one ear, and HoH in the other, so I have hearing aids), and I know at least from them, that written English is not their forte. A lot of grammar, like adding "ing" to the end of verbs and gerunds, is pretty baffling to someone who hasn't grown up hearing them in speech. Since I actually can hear (just not very well), my spoken/written English is not affected.