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21 September 2022, Wednesday Ankara, TURKEY

More than 4 Million Access to the Ministry's Current Turkish Sign Language Dictionary from 150 Countries


Current Turkish Sign Language (TİD) Dictionary, prepared by the Ministry of Family and Social Services for those who want to learn sign language, students studying at schools for those with hearing impairment, and educators who provide sign language education, has received more than 4 million accessfrom 150 countries.

The Current Turkish Sign Language Dictionary, offered by the Ministry on the website https://tidsozluk.aile.gov.tr/ in 2017, is based on the Turkish Sign Language collection obtained from 26 provinces of Türkiye and 116 Turkish Sign Language native speakers.

The dictionary contents, designed online as video-based, are presented in Turkish Sign Language and Turkish. The dictionary's user base includes students with hearing impairment, those who want to learn sign language, translators, special education teachers and researchers.

The dictionary, which consists of 2,000 words with the highest usage frequency, contains a total of 11,428 videos in three different types as sign, meaning and example, and prepared with different background colours according to their types.

The user can find the sign they want to learn by using Turkish words or the visual features of the sign. It is aimed to provide convenience to Turkish Sign Language students with the option to play videos at different speeds. With the help of sample videos, the user learns about the use of the related word in a sentence.

It is aimed that the transcription and Turkish translation of all the words in the videos will contribute to the learning of Turkish for those with hearing impairment and Turkish Sign Language for those without hearing impairment. The dictionary, which also has an English translation, has been accessed more than 4 million times from 150 countries since 2017.