[HN Gopher] Bogota's website has sign language titles
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Bogota's website has sign language titles
        
       Author : pob54
       Score  : 75 points
       Date   : 2022-10-02 15:11 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (bogota.gov.co)
 (TXT) w3m dump (bogota.gov.co)
        
       | ankaAr wrote:
       | I think is nice how teach us that are deaf people with the same
       | needings like us, that we are not deaf. Visibilization and
       | inclusion, even when they can read properly.
       | 
       | I'm not seeing this as a waste of money (of course it could be
       | anyway)
        
       | gus_massa wrote:
       | The site is in Spanish, but the idea of the post is easy to
       | understand anyway. [Hi from Argentina!]
       | 
       | If you hover your mouse over the menus, they expand and show the
       | text in sing language in a gif. [It may be the
       | local/latam/spanish version instad of the USA version. I don't
       | know neither.]
       | 
       | Anyway, is this useful for deaf people? How many deaf can
       | understand sign languages but not understand written language? I
       | think there are a few gramar and idiom differences, but I don't
       | expect that to be a problem. It may be useful for small children,
       | but it's the site of the city of Bogota, so I expect that all
       | users are adults.
        
         | gedy wrote:
         | > anyway, is this useful for deaf people?
         | 
         | I'm speaking out of my expertise here, but my understanding is
         | some deaf people don't consider written English, Spanish, etc.
         | to be their "native language", like their variant of signing
         | is.
         | 
         | As a non-deaf person (but with hearing loss), I find that to be
         | a little excessive for a website (a something roughly
         | equivalent to a book), but to each their own.
        
           | prepend wrote:
           | > my understanding is some deaf people don't consider written
           | English, Spanish, etc. to be their "native language", like
           | their variant of signing is
           | 
           | This is interesting and I wonder what their "native language"
           | written version is. As a native English speaker, written
           | English isn't native to me either but it's the written
           | expression of my language. If someone learns ASL, isn't
           | English also the written representation of their "spoken"
           | language?
        
             | richbell wrote:
             | > If someone learns ASL, isn't English also the written
             | representation of their "spoken" language?
             | 
             | No, because the grammar is completely different. In many
             | cases it isn't possible to literally translate a sentence
             | between ASL and English, so a trained interpreter would
             | instead try to convey the general sentiment.
             | 
             | My partner often describes sign languages as a completely
             | different modality; deaf people's dreams tend to be
             | completely different than hearing people's dreams, for
             | example.
        
               | prepend wrote:
               | What's the written representation of ASL? Is it really a
               | preference to use glyphs instead of letters?
               | 
               | I'm not sure what dreams has to do with written
               | representations. I'm not hard of hearing and I don't
               | dream in writing and sounds are completely different in
               | my dreams than waking life.
        
               | richbell wrote:
               | > What's the written representation of ASL? Is it really
               | a preference to use glyphs instead of letters?
               | 
               | That's the thing: unlike most spoken languages, sign
               | languages don't have written equivalents. Deaf people
               | often use the written language of their local community,
               | however, someone who speaks Spanish Sign Language writing
               | in Spanish has more to do with geography than
               | linguistics.
               | 
               | > I'm not sure what dreams has to do with written
               | representations. I'm not hard of hearing and I don't
               | dream in writing and sounds are completely different in
               | my dreams than waking life.
               | 
               | My point was that their brains experience and process
               | information differently than hearing people: it isn't
               | just that sign languages are visual while spoken
               | languages are audible. It's difficult to understand why
               | and how deaf people's experiences differ without talking
               | to an actual deaf person.
        
               | dhosek wrote:
               | There are written equivalents for sign languages,
               | although their use is controversial among some (but not
               | all) Deaf people. Spoken language is essentially one-
               | dimensional: it's a series of phonemes (and tones, even
               | in non-tonal language--consider the difference between
               | "It's here." and "It's here?") in a chronological order.
               | The movements that make up sign language are a bit more
               | difficult to represent in that one-dimensional sequence,
               | although not impossible. I imagine that millennia ago
               | when written languages were created, there was similar
               | resistance to replacing sounds with marks on
               | mud/bone/stone/bark/etc.
        
               | richbell wrote:
               | > There are written equivalents for sign languages,
               | although their use is controversial among some (but not
               | all) Deaf people.
               | 
               | Interesting, I haven't encountered any in my neck of the
               | woods (albeit I am hearing and not really active in of
               | deaf communities outside of family). Do you know what the
               | most "popular" written equivalents would be?
               | 
               | I don't think it's _impossible_ to represent sign
               | languages in written form, either via existing languages
               | like English or newly developed glyphs and symbols.
               | However, people often don 't seem to understand how
               | complex deaf culture and languages are, likely because
               | deaf communities can be quite insular (either by choice
               | or because of discrimination/isolation), which makes it a
               | difficult problem to discuss. Developing a fluent method
               | of bidirectional communication between hearing an deaf
               | people requires a fair bit of empathy, and I suspect the
               | only people who really understand both deaf and hearing
               | 'culture' are codas[0]; that said, I'd hope that raising
               | awareness about common misconceptions would go a long
               | way.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_of_deaf_adult
        
         | clamprecht wrote:
         | This may be a dumb question, but could it be to help deaf
         | people who know sign language but can't read/write?
        
           | prepend wrote:
           | Does this exist? I always assumed that sign language was
           | taught after reading and writing. I wonder how common it is
           | to have someone proficient in sign language but illiterate.
        
             | marci wrote:
             | > I always assumed that sign language was taught after
             | reading and writing.
             | 
             | Basically, you're saying "I always assumed that speaking
             | was taught after reading and writing." (which can happen,
             | but is far from being the norm)
        
             | richbell wrote:
             | > I always assumed that sign language was taught after
             | reading and writing.
             | 
             | Sign languages are often people's first language. If you're
             | like me, you probably learned english as a toddler through
             | magic and were later enrolled in school where you refined
             | your spoken and written abilities. For many deaf children
             | english is a second language.
        
             | dhosek wrote:
             | For children born deaf, sign language can be (and should
             | be) their first language. It turns out, incidentally, that
             | a baby's ability to form signs comes earlier than their
             | ability to vocalize, even for hearing children, so there
             | are benefits for using sign language even with hearing
             | children. My children learned some basic signs as infants
             | (water, bathroom, more). I really need to get on the ball
             | about learning ASL properly (and my family as well since
             | they'll need it just as much as me) since my cochleae are
             | on an ineluctable road to deafness and at some point, maybe
             | ten years, maybe thirty, maybe never, I will be unable to
             | hear instead of being merely hearing impaired.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | canjobear wrote:
         | > I think there are a few gramar and idiom differences
         | 
         | Sign languages are unrelated to spoken languages: they're not
         | just sign representations of existing languages like English
         | and Spanish, they are independent languages. But deaf people do
         | learn to read spoken languages in school, essentially as a
         | foreign language.
        
           | Angostura wrote:
           | Not unrelated. Closely related, but different.
        
             | klyrs wrote:
             | ASL and English are not closely related. Reason being that
             | ASL was derived from French, not English.
        
               | richbell wrote:
               | Yeah, that is a confusing element to explain about sign
               | languages. For example, Spanish Sign Language is called
               | that because it's a language regional to Spain, not
               | because it's related to Spanish.
        
               | yieldcrv wrote:
               | _sign languages_ are not universal, they are just a
               | parallel set of languages. ASL isn 't a blanket term for
               | sign language, especially in the context of a non-English
               | nexus.
        
               | klyrs wrote:
               | Note my specific contrast of ASL vs English. General
               | statements about sign languages (such as calling them
               | "parallel" languages) are frequently inaccurate. The
               | comment you responded to is a counterexample to a
               | generalization.
        
               | yieldcrv wrote:
               | Thats.... Ok. Convenient.
               | 
               | Nobody was talking about English before you except to
               | illustrate how they dont map one to one in a variety of
               | languages. But I can acknowledge your contribution to
               | this thread.
        
             | canjobear wrote:
             | No, they're unrelated in exactly the same way that the
             | English language and Chinese language are unrelated. There
             | may be lots of vocabulary overlap (in the form of finger-
             | spellings) but the grammar and basic vocabulary have
             | independent origins.
        
         | Nextgrid wrote:
         | I think it's more useful at the opposite - introducing non-deaf
         | people to sign language. It's pretty neat as long as it's
         | unobtrusive.
        
         | jt2190 wrote:
         | > Anyway, is this useful for deaf people? How many deaf can
         | understand sign languages but not understand written language?
         | 
         | When I was doing accessibility work, I was told point-blank by
         | a deaf person that the reading comprehension of the average
         | deaf person was quite poor, because to a deaf person English is
         | their second language. (Their first language being, of course,
         | sign language.)
         | 
         | With that in mind, we should think of it like the average
         | English-reader's ability to correctly comprehend Bogota's web
         | site: A few will be fluent, but large portion won't be able to
         | understand it at all.
        
       | aendruk wrote:
       | Screen recording: https://cloudflare-
       | ipfs.com/ipfs/QmZyY1Q6B1SQDFC1Qt5rT7qcVkz... (276 kB)
        
       | butz wrote:
       | I thought they be doing something interesting to match video
       | background with background color of element it is displayed on,
       | but alas, each video has appropriate background baked in.
        
       | userbinator wrote:
       | At least they didn't also add Braille.
        
         | atentaten wrote:
         | my sentiments exactly
        
       | richbell wrote:
       | To anyone confused: sign languages are distinct languages in and
       | of themselves, with their own etymology, not simply a visual
       | medium for existing languages. My understanding is that it's many
       | deaf people's preferred method of communication, even if they can
       | also read and write; some deaf people can read lips, but most
       | don't.
       | 
       | Unfortunately, many older deaf people were denied access to
       | education and thus cannot read or write fluently in other
       | languages. COVID was actually a huge improvement in accessibility
       | for deaf people as major governments and news organizations
       | started including sign language interpreters in their broadcasts.
        
       | bicijay wrote:
       | Ok, im going to sound very ignorant here and im sorry for that.
       | Do deaf people have trouble reading words as well?
        
         | victor22 wrote:
         | Having worked with Colombia Gvmnt IT I'd bet money that this is
         | just an overpriced website build that delivered on a careless
         | written fature request.
        
           | ugjka wrote:
           | And the actual accessibility is not that great
           | https://accessibilitytest.org/results/HEU-NOIXMBVk
        
           | mjhay wrote:
           | That sounds like American government IT as well.
        
         | klyrs wrote:
         | In much of the world, deaf people have additional barriers to
         | accessing education, so the population does see an elevated
         | rate of illiteracy.
        
           | prepend wrote:
           | Do you have a source for this? I would expect that any
           | education system that teaches sign also teaches reading.
           | 
           | So it would be good to share the stats you use to understand
           | how dead people have elevated rates of illiteracy.
        
             | bee_rider wrote:
             | I'm not sure about illiteracy rates, but generally I think
             | it is well known that the education system doesn't serve
             | deaf students as well as their hearing counterparts. Note
             | that the second link tries to debunk a statistic, but
             | really more contextualizes it to not look so bad.
             | 
             | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15454499/
             | 
             | http://www.redeafined.com/2012/04/debunking-fourth-grade-
             | rea...
        
             | richbell wrote:
             | I suspect there aren't many academic sources detailing the
             | discrimination faced by deaf people, though there might be
             | compilations of first-hand accounts. The deaf community is
             | fairly insular.
             | 
             | My partner's father was born in India as the eldest of
             | several boys. Despite his family being well-off, he was
             | treated as a burden and most of his family refused to learn
             | IPSL to be able to communicate with him. His mother and
             | father weren't supportive of his personal, academic, or
             | business pursuits; his brothers all went to prestigious
             | foreign universities and became highly educated. He made
             | his own way to Canada where he learned his 4th and 5th
             | languages, ASL and English, and started a family with a
             | deaf girl his family had arranged a marriage to. The man
             | has gumption, but was never really able to escaped the
             | poverty line.
        
         | ars wrote:
         | It's a different language. Sign, and English (or Spanish, etc)
         | whether written or spoken, is a different language from Sign.
         | 
         | I would assume close to 100% of deaf people will learn to read
         | that language, but it should still be remembered it's a second
         | language to them.
        
           | yreg wrote:
           | But only the menus are translated to a sign language (I don't
           | know which one). The actual content of the site is not. So
           | the question of how is this useful remains.
        
           | robin_reala wrote:
           | Also worth pointing out that there's not one sign language.
           | ASL (American sign language) and BSL (British sign language)
           | are different languages from each other, and from English as
           | well.
        
             | bigyikes wrote:
             | Can you have an accent in sign language? Might someone from
             | New York sign differently than someone from Los Angeles?
        
               | Dracophoenix wrote:
               | If by accent, you mean an idiolect, perhaps, but such an
               | "accent" is likely limited to families or in-jokes among
               | friends. Geographic differences in sign languages are
               | more comparable to differences in dialects. Thus, some
               | sign languages are more mutually intelligible than
               | others.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha%27s_Vineyard_Sign_La
               | ngu...
        
               | rectang wrote:
               | It seems inevitable that slight changes of gesture or
               | angle or rhythm would emerge in isolated signing
               | populations, analogous to the way accents develop in
               | isolated speaking populations.
        
               | smscott wrote:
               | Absolutely. There are accents, idioms, and even different
               | signs for the same word that may vary between region,
               | generation, and personal history with the language. e.g a
               | southerner can likely guess someone is from the northeast
               | with high confidence and vice versa. People raised Deaf
               | can often tell if another person is hearing, or someone
               | who was raised mainstream without access to sign language
               | until later in life. There can also be family/hyperlocale
               | idioms or even individual signs that won't be readily
               | understood outside the group; I think this is true for
               | most languages as forms of inside jokes and the like. Two
               | words in ASL that I've noted have a few distinct signs in
               | different areas are strawberry and mean ("he is a mean
               | person").
        
       | baby wrote:
       | This is cute, but not useful as deaf/mute people can read. Also,
       | doesn't translate properly (remember, different countries tend to
       | have different sign languages).
        
         | jonathankoren wrote:
         | Why are you assuming this doesn't translate? I would assume
         | that the government at least has a sign language interpreter
         | that would notice that page is wrong within a minute of using
         | it.
        
           | baby wrote:
           | to support locals you'd have to create gifs for every sign
           | languages out there. That doesn't scale as easily as text.
        
         | richbell wrote:
         | > not useful as deaf/mute people can read
         | 
         | Not all of them can: that's why accessibility is important.
        
           | catiopatio wrote:
           | > Not all of them can: that's why accessibility is important.
           | 
           | No, that's why education is important.
           | 
           | If they can't read, that's a failure of education; fix it
           | there.
           | 
           | That's a lot cheaper and more effective than trying to force
           | the entire world to publish sign-language gif pop-ups as an
           | accessibility measure on their written documents.
        
             | richbell wrote:
             | > No, that's why education is important.
             | 
             | > If they can't read, that's a failure of education; fix it
             | there.
             | 
             | You can tackle more than one thing at a time. Improving the
             | education system doesn't necessarily help older
             | generations, for example.
        
               | prepend wrote:
               | The education system shouldn't only serve children and is
               | part of a lifelong process.
               | 
               | My community has many education and training programs for
               | people of all ages. Even ones targeted at helping
               | retirement age seniors read.
               | 
               | I don't think it's a good idea to incorrectly assume that
               | the education system only serves kids.
        
               | richbell wrote:
               | > The education system shouldn't only serve children and
               | is part of a lifelong process.
               | 
               | I agree. Unfortunately, in many places it barely serves
               | children, let alone the rest of the community.
               | 
               | But this is tangential to my original point, which is
               | that reasonable accommodations are good and that you can
               | improve accessibility and education at the same time.
        
           | Loic wrote:
           | I am not sure why you are down voted, in Germany, we have
           | about 6 millions adults who are functionally illiterate. This
           | is a big issue.
        
             | marginalia_nu wrote:
             | This could also be framed as a failure of the educational
             | system.
        
               | klyrs wrote:
               | https://www.dw.com/en/millions-of-germans-have-trouble-
               | readi...
               | 
               | Roughly half of the illiteracy rate in Germany is due to
               | migrants who are not native German speakers. Framing this
               | as a failure of the educational system would be rather
               | ignorant, as that's at most half of the problem.
        
               | marginalia_nu wrote:
               | I'd think it would be a priority to educate immigrants to
               | a level where they're able to be self-sufficient as well.
        
               | gus_massa wrote:
               | Illiteracy in that article means illiteracy in German or
               | illiteracy in their native language?
               | 
               | Also...
               | 
               | > _More than 6 million adults in Germany struggle to read
               | and write simple texts in German, a new study has found._
               | 
               | Can they read enough to navigate some menus in German?
        
             | richbell wrote:
             | I suspect people misinterpret me pointing out that a group
             | has been historically discriminated against and denied
             | education, or at least not being provided accommodations
             | that allow them to participate, as being bigoted.
             | 
             | A lot of people don't realize that the dominant language of
             | a country is usually a deaf person's second or third
             | language. Thus, they may be more comfortable speaking in
             | their first language, sign language (which is regional and
             | not one global language*).
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | prepend wrote:
           | What about non-deaf people who can't read? How do they
           | experience the site?
           | 
           | Isn't accessibility important for non-readers? I would expect
           | there are more illiterate people who can hear than dead
           | people who are illiterate.
           | 
           | Either way, it seems like the best way for the site to
           | accommodate visitors is to use accessibility features so
           | their written content can be used by screen readers for the
           | sight impaired but also sign language displayers for people
           | who prefer sign language and text to speech for people who
           | can't read but can hear.
           | 
           | I don't think accessibility should be binary for one or the
           | other but dedicating resources to visual sign language seems
           | like a luxury that most sites can't afford.
        
             | richbell wrote:
             | > Either way, it seems like the best way for the site to
             | accommodate visitors is to use accessibility features so
             | their written content can be used by screen readers for the
             | sight impaired but also sign language displayers for people
             | who prefer sign language and text to speech for people who
             | can't read but can hear.
             | 
             | While the implementation could definitely be improved, I
             | can't fault them for trying. Perhaps stuff like this will
             | be streamlined in the next decade.
             | 
             | > I don't think accessibility should be binary for one or
             | the other but dedicating resources to visual sign language
             | seems like a luxury that most sites can't afford.
             | 
             | You could make the same argument about making sites
             | compatible with screen readers -- and many do. At the end
             | of the day, I think it's reasonable for government services
             | to be held to a higher standard of accessibility.
        
               | prepend wrote:
               | In the US there is a standard in the ADA called section
               | 508 that specifies what is required.
               | 
               | I can fault them for trying if their failure makes it
               | harder for people to access the site. At the end of the
               | day there's a fixed dev budget and if it's spent on one
               | thing and misses other important things that's bad. It is
               | nice that they have good intentions and it's better than
               | nothing. But they should be faulted so they can correct
               | the fault and do better next time.
        
               | richbell wrote:
               | > But they should be faulted so they can correct the
               | fault and do better next time.
               | 
               | I don't understand the point you're trying to make.
               | They're clearly trying to do better as this is a fairly
               | novel approach. Is it perfect? No. But I'm puzzled by the
               | weirdly negative and aggressive reaction this is getting.
               | 
               | Deaf people are often neglected and forgotten about. My
               | partner's father is deaf and when he visits government
               | services, had medical appointments, etc., they almost
               | never provide an interpreter -- despite it being a legal
               | requirement he requests in advance which is fully
               | subsidized -- because they assume that writing stuff down
               | on paper or making vague gestures is adequate. If
               | awareness and accessibility for deaf people is this bad
               | in a major Canadian metropolitan area, imagine how bad it
               | is in smaller areas and countries.
        
               | prepend wrote:
               | My point is that there are accessibility standards. If a
               | site doesn't follow them and instead does something else,
               | even with good intentions, that should be pointed out so
               | they do better next time.
               | 
               | I don't think I feel terribly negative other than if the
               | goal is to accommodate dead people then the site made a
               | poor decision that whirl accommodating some dead people
               | made it harder for other people who need different
               | accessibilities.
               | 
               | I don't think the issue is awareness so much as
               | accommodation. I think resources are better spent on
               | solving the problems that can be solved rather than
               | raising awareness.
        
               | richbell wrote:
               | > I don't think the issue is awareness so much as
               | accommodation. I think resources are better spent on
               | solving the problems that can be solved rather than
               | raising awareness.
               | 
               | This is a false dichotomy: we can do both. And I
               | respectfully disagree about the issue not being
               | awareness. The comments on this post itself demonstrates
               | the lack of awareness and understanding about deaf
               | people's experience.
        
       | thih9 wrote:
       | Is there a way to see it in a mobile browser? (Safari in my case)
        
         | yreg wrote:
         | Works for me in mobile Safari: https://i.imgur.com/yCdSMUq.jpg
        
       | logicalmonster wrote:
       | What good does it do a deaf person who can't read to arrive at
       | pages that are not sign-translated?
       | 
       | Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but the reason that this
       | feels like a combination of government-waste and possibly virtue-
       | signaling is that only the column headings seem to be sign-
       | translated. Even if it lets some people know that they click on
       | the tourism or jobs or culture section of the website, the
       | content within those pages doesn't seem to be sign-translated. So
       | how does it really help anybody? Hell, can you even get to this
       | website in the first place if you can't read?
       | 
       | And I don't know how Columbia's Internet works, but if you can
       | read and aren't wealthy enough to afford fast Internet, maybe
       | loading up videos while trying to browse the site makes the site
       | slower and a worse experience for everybody.
       | 
       | Perhaps the sentiment behind this is noble, and as an experiment
       | it sure is interesting, but I'm not convinced that it really
       | helps as is yet. Maybe this is a foundation for something more
       | interesting down the road, but we'll see.
       | 
       | PS: As a side note, while I can't read the content, the site
       | itself looks pretty visually interesting and well-done.
        
         | bee_rider wrote:
         | Hypothetically anything could be government waste, but adding a
         | little accessibility feature doesn't seem like a huge project,
         | right? They have to hire a translator for an afternoon, and
         | then embed some videos into their site.
         | 
         | And if they have the virtue of supporting accessibility, why
         | shouldn't they signal that? It seems like it would be helpful
         | info, if you were deaf and thinking of visiting, to know that
         | the local government was at least trying. I mean hypothetically
         | they could be lying, but in that case the issue still isn't
         | virtual signaling, it would just be the lie.
        
         | xienze wrote:
         | > but the reason that this feels like a combination of
         | government-waste and possibly virtue-signaling
         | 
         | I've felt this same way about all these government press
         | conferences that have a picture-in-picture of someone doing
         | sign language translation. I genuinely don't understand the
         | point apart from virtue signaling. Why not just use live
         | transcription? I can't imagine that we don't have the tech to
         | do a good job of it now, in real time, or close enough.
        
           | richbell wrote:
           | > I've felt this same way about all these government press
           | conferences that have a picture-in-picture of someone doing
           | sign language translation. I genuinely don't understand the
           | point apart from virtue signaling. Why not just use live
           | transcription?
           | 
           | I understand why you might feel this way, so let me try to
           | explain.
           | 
           | Sign languages are a completely different modality/type of
           | language than written and spoken languages. For example,
           | American Sign Language (ASL) is _completely unrelated_ to
           | written and spoken English, and conveying a message between
           | languages is often complicated and requires someone to
           | actively interpret -- it 's more of an art than a science. So
           | while Closed Captioning was a huge step forward for making
           | things accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people, it's
           | still a subpar method of communication because for deaf
           | people, especially deaf immigrants, written English is often
           | their 2nd/3rd/4th language. When you are communicating
           | important information where comprehension is essential, you
           | *need* an interpreter.
        
             | logicalmonster wrote:
             | > American Sign Language (ASL) is completely unrelated to
             | written and spoken English
             | 
             | Do you have any resources that could explain this different
             | more fully?
        
               | MrDrone wrote:
               | This parent-commenter is correct, ASL is a completely
               | separate language from spoken English. Many people who
               | are raised with ASL as their first language prefer seeing
               | ASL rather than reading English.
               | 
               | Modern ASL includes elements of "signed English" but it
               | it's own language, the third most common in the US.
               | 
               | I am a hearing person, so take my understanding of this
               | with a grain of salt. Here is a Deaf primary resource to
               | describe the difference.
               | 
               | https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/history8.htm
        
             | MrDrone wrote:
             | This is absolutely correct. ASL is so deeply different from
             | English that in certain circumstances where it's a priority
             | that a signer's understanding of the topic is clear there
             | can be two interpreters at once. A hearing interpreter who
             | interprets verbatim to a Deaf interpreter (a CDI, or
             | certified Deaf interpreter) who then interprets to the Deaf
             | recipient.
             | 
             | Public broadcasts should absolutely be interpreted to
             | ensure that everyone has access to understanding them.
             | 
             | I encourage everyone to learn more about ASL and to learn a
             | bit of ASL themselves. There are many amazing resources put
             | out by Deaf people to help folks learn.
        
               | richbell wrote:
               | > A hearing interpreter who interprets verbatim to a Deaf
               | interpreter (a CDI, or certified Deaf interpreter) who
               | then interprets to the Deaf recipient.
               | 
               | This is a fantastic point. Learning about CDIs really
               | helped me understand the chasm between written and spoken
               | languages versus sign languages.
               | 
               | For example, writing a program that leverages NLP to
               | provide real-time captioning doesn't necessarily make the
               | content as accessible as you'd think.
        
           | logicalmonster wrote:
           | I think the best argument for having government press
           | conferences with a video of somebody doing sign language is
           | that it underscores that something might be a super serious
           | situation that literally _everybody_ needs to know about as a
           | matter of immediate life and death and it would get peoples '
           | attention who might not otherwise notice that something was
           | serious. That benefit is arguably nullified though when every
           | press conference has them.
           | 
           | Personally speaking though, I'm against using them in about
           | 99.999% of situations that are not imminent life and death
           | emergencies. The gesturers' motions can be super distracting
           | to the point that it makes the normal political process
           | harder to focus on. It's just distracting enough (IMO) that
           | important details about the normal everyday government
           | business can be missed.
        
             | richbell wrote:
             | > That benefit is arguably nullified though when every
             | press conference has them... Personally speaking though,
             | I'm against using them in about 99.999% of situations that
             | are not imminent life and death emergencies.
             | 
             | The benefit is including deaf people, not just making sure
             | that they're able to comprehend emergency alerts (though
             | that is also important). While I agree that the system
             | could be refined, another part of me likes it because it
             | gives visibility to something that the vast majority of
             | hearing people wouldn't know about otherwise.
             | 
             | Anecdotally, my partner's parents can read and write
             | English but aren't fluent in it. The prevalence of
             | interpreters in the past few years has made things
             | accessible to them that wouldn't have been in the past.
             | From what I've heard, they aren't alone in their
             | experience.
        
         | hjdhdfjfhfhg wrote:
        
           | yreg wrote:
           | I don't understand what you are saying at all. Care to
           | elaborate in a less passive-aggressive way?
        
         | jen729w wrote:
         | > Columbia's
         | 
         | Colombia.
         | 
         | I correct this at 80% of coffee shops I go to. Yeah, I'm that
         | guy.
         | 
         | I went to Colombia in the early 2000s and _adored_ it (I'm
         | British), so this gets my goat.
        
         | IncRnd wrote:
         | Hover over one of the sign-language symbols and see video of a
         | person signing to provide information.
        
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