Sign Language Translation Approach to Sinhalese Language

Abstract

addition to that, proposed research suggests, implementing a hybrid method in distance communication similar to ordinary chat applications which would enable deaf people to communicate easily. Proposed method allows sending messages through sign language, Sinhalese language or both. II. BACKGROUND A. Sign LanguagesCurrently there are nearly hundred sign languages can be identified around the world [6]. American Sign Language (ASL), British Sign Language (BSL) Mexican Sign Language (LSM), French Sign Language (LSF), Italian Sign Language (LIS) and Spanish Sign Language (LSE) are just among few of them.[6] Almost every spoken language has a respective sign language, developed based on above mentioned sign languages. B. Sri Lankan Sign Language C. Related WorkQuan introduced [7] a Basic Sign Language Recognition system which was able to translate sequence of signs into commonly used speech language and vice versa. This sign language bidirectional translation (from signs to speech and from speech to signs) focused on the Chinese Manual Alphabet where every single sign belongs to a single letter from the alphabet [7]. The system is composed of a camera, video display terminal (VDT), speaker, microphone, and a keyboard. By using a multi-futures Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier trained with a linear kernel in which 30 letters from Chinese manual alphabet recognized with an average accuracy of 95.55%.Martinez Capilla [6] introduced a sign language translation system using Microsoft Kinect XBOX device as the gesture capturing device. Open NI/NITE middleware used for detection of joints of the captured frame through kinect camera. System was capable of understanding the trained gestures with 95.2% accuracy. One of the issues with this research was that there is no testing evidence of signs in a standard sign language, as the researcher has introduced his own set of signs for translation purpose. Starner and Petland [8] invented a Visual recognition system for American Sign Language translation. They were using set Abstract -Sign language is used for communication between deaf persons while Sinhalese language is used by normal hearing persons whose first language is Sinhalese in Sri Lanka. This research focuses on an approach for a real-time translation from Sri Lankan sign language to Sinhalese language which will bridge the communication gap between deaf and ordinary communities. This study further focuses on a novel methodology of enabling distance communication between deaf and ordinary persons. Once the sign based gestures captured by depth sensing camera, series of feature extraction techniques will be used to identify essential attributes in gesture frame. Identified feature frame will be compared with pre-trained gesture dictionary based on classification techniques, in order to identify gesture based word. Detected word will be displayed for ordinary user or could be used for communication between two individuals in two different geographic locations. Proposed prototype has provided an overall recognition ...

Advancements in Vision-Based Sign Language Recognition: A Comprehensive Review

“…Since some researchers have implemented mobile applications, they have used the phone camera to capture data [9]. In research, [10] Wimalaratne and Fernando used a Kinect XBOX 360 device to capture some additional information as the depth of an image. To get more information, research [11] has used a CMOS image sensor camera.…”

“…The input images were converted into a fixed size in [9], [16], [17], [11] and [18]. In some research articles, [10], [19] images were normalized at the pre-processing stage. Background subtraction is also a main method used in this step.…”

“…Background subtraction is also a main method used in this step. In research [10], they used a filtering method to remove background and unwanted skeleton points.…”

“…MediaPipe Holistic is utilized to detect and track key points, allowing to recognize hand and body movements in sign language gestures. In [10], Pumudu and Prasad developed a gesture pre-processing module to extract the feature points. Data extracted from each frame formed a "feature frame", representing the X, Y, and Z coordinates of selected joint positions of the skeleton.…”

Sign Language Recognition for Sentence Level Continuous Signings

“…Kulaveerasingam et al invented a system which is gesture based intercommunication platform for hearing-impaired people [15]. Pumudu Fernando and Prasad Wimalaratne proposed sign language translation approach to Sinhalese language [16]. Madushanka et al introduced a framework for Sinhala sign language recognition and translation using a wearable armband [17].…”