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The purpose of the inter-lingual index is to link the lexical resources from the different languages of the project and make them machine-readable. The earlier deliverable D6.3 was the first version of this index. It included German Sign Language (DGS) and Greek Sign Language (GSL). This deliverable is the second version of the index. It covers further core sign languages of the project: British Sign Language (BSL), Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT), French Sign Language (LSF) and Swiss-German Sign Language (DSGS). The next version will be deliverable 6.5 and will include languages beyond the project’s core languages. The deliverable is the index itself. This report provides background information on wordnet research, explains our method and choices, and presents the resulting dataset. Our interlingual index uses the wordnet concept of synonym sets (synsets), which define con- cepts by gathering signs and words that can represent the same meaning. This approach is more resistant to translation mistakes stemming from translation pairs being only valid for cer- tain word/sign meanings. It also provides a new way to define sign types that does not rely on approximate translations to a single spoken language word, the way glosses do. As a basis for our index, we build on the synset inventory of Open Multilingual Wordnet (OMW). We use a three-step method: The first step is automatically matching candidate synsets to signs using the keywords and glosses associated with the sign. The second step is automatically validating links that are most likely to be correct. The final step is manual validation of the remaining links, prioritising the most useful signs. This work has resulted in a dataset of 7929 signs in 6 sign languages linked to 11806 synsets. Additionally, a web interface has been launched to make the index accessible for the general public.

This is the conference poster for the publication "The Sign Language Interchange Format: Harmonising Sign Language Datasets for Computational Processing", presented at the 8th International Workshop on Sign Language Translation and Avatar Technology (SLTAT 2023).

We introduce the Sign Language Interchange Format (SLIF), a new format for representing annotations and lexical inventories of sign language datasets. The format is designed as an intermediate step in data preparation for language technologies, unifying the annotation conventions of different corpora for further use. Complex gloss notations and implicit relations between tiers are made explicit through a hierarchy of machine-readable container structures. Sample implementations for converting to and from the new format are provided.

This deliverable D6.6 provides tools for harmonizing available annotations to a common interchange format. It defines the interchange format and provides example implementations for two corpora. It also introduces EASIER Notation, a new human- and machine-readable format for data exchange between machine translation and avatar components, and implements a converter from interchange format to EASIER Notation.

The purpose of the interlingual index is to link the lexical resources of all sign languages of the project. D6.3 is the first version of this index, covering DGS and GSL.

This document compiles information required for the joint use of several specific sign language corpora. It compares the annotations of 17 different corpora (some covering multiple languages) that include data for 17 signed languages. The comparison addresses annotation standards for manual and non-manual signs, describing their basic annotation format, formats for various specific phenomena and handshape coding approaches. This information is then used to formulate a strategy for the harmonization of these annotation standards that will result in a corpus-independent interchange format for the representation of all considered corpora.