Are you studying or working in a technical field like mathematics, science, engineering, or computers? An interpreter who needs to interpret for a student in a technical class? Resources are available for learning or looking up technical signs:
- The Described and Captioned Media Program (registration required) has several educational video materials that use technical signs, covering topics such as anthropology, biology, economics, engineering, fine/applied arts, mathematics, photography, physics, printing, science, and more.
- The Random House Webster's American Sign Language Computer Dictionary by Elaine Costello is a dictionary of computer-related signs.
For example, according to this dictionary, the word HTML is fingerspelled.
The National Technical Institute for the Deaf's Clearinghouse on Mathematics, Engineering, Technology and Science (COMETS) has a mix of written information and signed videos about scientific and mathematical terminology. COMETS offers a science/mathematics sign lexicon that either refers people to print and video sources, or has Quicktime videos demonstrating the sign, and a series of pictionaries. The available pictionaries, with illustrated (but not signed) definitions, cover marine science, environmental science, space and astronomy science, and germs.
Butte Publications sells a technical sign manual on science and mathematics, available under interpreting resources. The books are sold as an interpreting resource.
The Federal government has also been involved; in 2000, the Shodor Education Foundation received a grant from the National Science Foundation to develop technical sign language materials for the study of computational science. Shodor has a website showcasing this project, Succeed-HI. The Succeed-HI website has video clips, and resources for students and teachers. Succeed-HI is now an archived site; its successor is the site DeafStem Technical Terms. This website showcases both already existing related signs, and when there is no known sign, the DeafStem team develops one. Signs are posted both alphabetically and by category. Categories available are general terms, computational terms, math terms, and science terms.
