SIGNBANK: Use SignPuddle to Create A SignBank For Your Country

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
November 18, 2005

> Ingvild Roald wrote:
> Just now I am writing signs into the SignPudle for my presentation  
> to all the Sign Language researchers in Norway on Saturday next. So  
> my next question is: How can I get the signs from SignPuddle into  
> SignBank??? Ingvild



Hello Ingvild and Everyone!
Thank you for this question. I will be happy to teach you how to use  
SignPuddle to create your own Norwegian SignBank.

I will start a series of Lessons teaching how to create your own  
SignBank from SignPuddle this weekend...or at the latest, the lessons  
will start this coming Monday. And the lessons will be  
ongoing...because SignBank is a very rich program with many features  
to learn!

This will help several other projects too. I believe there are  
others, in French-Belgium perhaps? and perhaps Brazil? who have  
expressed interest in publishing vocabulary lists and printed  
dictionaries sorted by Sign-Symbol-Sequence. SignBank also makes it  
possible to create multiple-language dictionaries, between several  
spoken and signed languages within one document. Plus you can search  
by sophisticated linguistic searches, and work on SignSpelling  
issues, create picture-dictionaries for children, and there is a  
place to add video clips and animation for each sign...SignBank also  
provides the complete SymbolBank, so you can search for individual  
symbols to study them.

SignPuddle is the way we prepare the signs, that are then placed in  
SignBank.

Since SignBank is a desktop program, and since it does not require  
FileMaker or any other software, and since it can be used in both  
Macintosh and Windows computers, it is a great partner with  
SignPuddle, which provides the way to write the signs themselves.

The two programs, SignBank and SignPuddle, are the only programs we  
know of, that are using the IMWA...I test the IMWA in SignBank before  
I place the symbols in SignPuddle (with Steve's help of course!)...

Sooo...I need to upload the latest version of SignBank onto the web,  
so you can download it, with the new 10 handshapes and so many other  
changes that we made to the IMWA recently... I need another day  
before I will be able to upload the new SignBank...

Once the up-to-date SignBank is on the web for you to download, I  
will announce it, and then once you have downloaded it, we can begin  
the lessons...

Thanks for asking!!

And best of luck with all your great projects in Norway, Ingvild!

Val ;-)


Valerie Sutton
Sutton at SignWriting.org

1. SignWriting
http://www.SignWriting.org
Read & Write Sign Languages

2. SignBank
http://www.SignBank.org
Sign Language Dictionaries