A personal digital translator that would translate English into American Sign Language, would better bridge the gulf between deaf and hearing worlds. The nature of conversation requires the type of flexibility that CG can provide. This paper describes one of the crucial components of a future personal digital translator, which is hand animation. The Nature of ASL American Sign Language is a rich and varied natural language. While ASL shares some vocabulary with English, it is not a direct translation of English words and sentence structure.
Fingerspelling slows ASL conversation, but is necessary for complete communication.
All signs and fingerspelling are composed of one or more handshapes. Additional information is conveyed by facial expression, hand orientation and position, but the handshape is a key factor. Both video clip technology and still image technology are limited in their ability to create the full range of ASL ultimately necessary. In order to be useful in conversation, a presentation technology must be flexible enough to create new sentences from signs, taking into account such items as the correct conjugation of verbs. We believe that computer graphics is the most appropriate technology choice for presentation of ASL on a digital translator.