peterkhess/KSL-Glossary

Kenyan Sign Language Glossary for Peace Corps Kenya Kenyan Sign Language Glossary ============ **Kenyan Sign Language digital glossary for Peace Corps Kenya** *Imagine a widely used language, with no available dictionary. Now imagine that this language cannot be written down, as it is entirely visual. How can you create a glossary for someone learning a language that cannot be written, and has no sound? If you want to know, and help create this unique resource, keep reading.* **Background** In 2009, the United States Peace Corps in Kenya began work on a project to improve language learning for Deaf Education Volunteers, who will be communicating primarily in Kenyan Sign Language (KSL). Early on, the project consisted of written materials and drawings of all the signs. These materials were used extensively for trainings. A group of volunteers eventually began collecting pictures and videos of signs, however they were not uniform, some were difficult to see, and the signs for the same word varied substantially from region to region. Another huge problem that was observed was the "cooking" or "inventing" of signs for words the volunteers didn't know. Just like you would not "invent" a Chinese word because you do not know the language, it is not the place of an American volunteer to have an influence on a native Kenyan language. To eradicate this problem, Peace Corps Volunteer Leaders Rachel Rose and Peter Hess started taking the project in a different direction. Rachel worked with a team of deaf community members, with the assistance of our sign language training staff, to have members of the community agree on particular signs. They then began the painstaking task of filming over 500 technical signs, focusing on Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Math, once the sign had been agreed upon by members of the deaf community. However, in certain cases more than one sign was deemed appropriate for a word, so there are “sign variations” which can be thought of as “regional dialects.” After the signs were collected, Peter …