Why in News?

• Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment launched the “2nd Edition of Indian Sign Language (ISL) Dictionary” brought out by ‘Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre (ISLRTC)’ under Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), M/o Social Justice & Empowerment.

Highlights:

• The second edition, dictionary includes total 6000 words under the categories of academic, legal, medical, technical and everyday terms. The ISL Dictionary is also available on ISLRTC’s YouTube channel. It has been made with the involvement of the hearing- impaired community, by giving due consideration to their suggestions and understanding. The videos contain the sign, the English term for the sign and pictures where relevant. A word list is also given with the English and Hindi equivalents of the signs. The dictionary is intended to serve as a resource for ISL teachers, ISL learners, teachers of the hearing impaired, interpreters, parents of hearing-impaired children, researchers, etc. Hearing impaired persons will benefit from this dictionary since they can look up information about a particular sign and its English/Hindi equivalents.