On the implementation of text to Arabic Sign Language converter on mobile phones

Abstract

Arabic Sign Language (ArSL) is considered the native language for more than 17 million deaf people in the Arab world. There exist a major communication gap between the deaf and the hearing people, which can be attributed to the lack of proper communication technologies.

This technical paper presents the design and implementation of a mobile system that converts written Arabic text to ArSL using a signing avatar that operates on mobile phones. The system takes into consideration the linguistic idiosyncrasies of Arabic language as well as employs text-to-sign-language animation. The main contribution of this system resides in its novel approach for processing Arabic text and animating a 3D signing avatar within minimum computational resources found in mobile phones.