New large European project on sign languages: SIGN-HUB

Pompeu Fabra University will coordinate the project "The Sign Hub: Preserving, Researching and Fostering the Linguistic, Historical and Cultural Heritage of European Deaf Signing Communities with an Integral Resource" during the 4 next years. This project aims to provide the first comprehensive response to the societal and scientific challenge resulting from generalized neglect of the cultural and linguistic identity of signing Deaf communities in Europe. It will provide an innovative and inclusive resource hub for the linguistic, historical and cultural documentation of the Deaf communities' heritage and for sign language assessment in clinical intervention and school settings. To this end, it will create an open state-of-the-art digital platform with customized accessible interfaces. The project will initially feed that platform with core content in the following domains, expandable in the future to other sign languages: 

(i) digital grammars of 6 sign languages, produced with a new online grammar writing tool; 
(ii) an interactive digital atlas of linguistic structures of the world's sign languages; 
(iii) online sign language assessment instruments for education and clinical intervention, and 
(iv) the first digital archive of life narratives by elderly signers, subtitled and partially annotated for linguistic properties. 

List of partners:
1 UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA Catalonia, Spain
2 UNIVERSITA' DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO-BICOCCA Italy
3 UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM Netherlands
4 BOGAZICI UNIVERSITESI Turkey
5 CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE France
6 UNIVERSITE PARIS DIDEROT - PARIS 7 France
7 TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY Israel
8 GEORG-AUGUST-UNIVERSITAET GÖTTINGEN Germany
9 UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA Italy
10 CONSORZIO INTERUNIVERSITARIO NAZIONALE PER L'INFORMATICA Italy