AMRITSAR: Aiming to facilitate better communication between Punjabi-speaking parents of hearing-impaired children, the All-India Pingalwara Charitable Society’s Manawala branch is working on a sign language dictionary for Punjabi.
The compilation will include around 2,000 words in its first edition, with signs also covering certain words that are typical of the Punjabi language, and have no literal equivalent in English.
The dictionary will cover 50 topics, or chapters, including colours, families, body parts, health and behavioral aspects, clothes, earth and sky constituents, furniture, metals and metallic objects and other objects if daily use.
R.P. Singh, director of the Bhagat Puran Singh School for the Deaf, the man behind the project, says: “The words and their Hand representations have been Finalized. Now we only have to arrange photographs to illustrate the book before it is published.”
In the Punjabi dictionary, the essence of the sign language will remain the same as the conventional one. What will differ is its usage for certain typical Punjabi words. “I have tried to create signs for words that are used in day-to day Punjabi life, like ‘seva’ and ‘datun’,” Singh says. There are also specific signs for various family relations, which other wise in English are often described by generic words such as ‘uncle’ or ‘aunt’.
The standard sign-language dictionaries – the Indian, British and Amercian versions- however, remain the foundation for the Punjabi dictionary.
The Pingalwara society’s Manawala branch, which deals with 58 deaf children, got working on the idea when it observed the kids did not want to go home after school, as they could not express themselves to their families very well, as the parents didn’t know the sign language. And to a young mind exploring the world, communication is very important. As teaching the English sign language was not possible with many families, it was decided to create one in Punjabi.
