DeafDigest Mid-Week edition, March 14, 2012
-- An interpreting assignment of 14,000 signed words!
Zhou Ye is a Chinese interpreter. Last week she interpreted
the 2-hour speech of Chinese premier Wen Jiabao. After the
speech, she said she interpreted a total of 14,000 signed
words. She refused to let a back up interpreter replace her
for 15-20 minutes. Why no back up? She wanted to do it
alone, but also admitted her shoulders gave her a lot of pain.
- A lawsuit over 2005 accident involving deaf airplane pilot
In 2005, few deaf pilots attended a fly-in event at
Edgartown, MA. One deaf pilot, flew to the event and tried
to land at a small airport. But he saw a hearing pilot
take off, so he steered his plane to avoid an accident.
The plane went out of control and crashed, hurting the
deaf pilot and two deaf passengers. Seven years later,
right now, a court trial is taking place. The injured
passenger filed a million dollar lawsuit against the
deaf pilot, the hearing pilot, airport manager,
airport owner, and airplane manufacturer. Since the
airport has no radio control tower, all pilots were
supposed to watch out for take-off and landing.
-- British software that can convert sign language to words
A team at University of Aberdeen in England is working on
software that changes sign language to words on wireless
devices. They say it works fast without delays. They also
said it will be available late next year. Will it be
successful? There are many different signs for the word
"computer" or "football." Will the software know these
different signs? A computer sign in California is different
from a computer sign in Washington, DC.
-- A famous deaf woman equal to other famous hearing women
The new TV program - Breakthrough Women, to be shown on
the HLN from the DirecTV, will be featuring a deaf
woman as equals to other famous hearing women (Robin Meade,
Jane Velez-Mitchell, Nancy Grace and Joy Behar). The deaf
woman is Ashley Fiolek, the world's #1 female motocross racer.
-- World's rarest sign language
There are over 200 sign languages in the world. One
of these languages is the Kata Kolok. It is used just
by 3,000 deaf people that live in a small village in
the Indonesian island of Bali. A reason for their
deafness in that small village is 8-generations of
marrying each other.
