A Blissymbolics Translation System

Usman Sohail, David Traum


Abstract
Blissymbolics (Bliss) is a pictographic writing system that is used by people with communication disorders. Bliss attempts to create a writing system that makes words easier to distinguish by using pictographic symbols that encapsulate meaning rather than sound, as the English alphabet does for example. Users of Bliss rely on human interpreters to use Bliss. We created a translation system from Bliss to natural English with the hopes of decreasing the reliance on human interpreters by the Bliss community. We first discuss the basic rules of Blissymbolics. Then we point out some of the challenges associated with developing computer assisted tools for Blissymbolics. Next we talk about our ongoing work in developing a translation system, including current limitations, and future work. We conclude with a set of examples showing the current capabilities of our translation system.
Anthology ID:
W19-1705
Volume:
Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop on Speech and Language Processing for Assistive Technologies
Month:
June
Year:
2019
Address:
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Editors:
Heidi Christensen, Kristy Hollingshead, Emily Prud’hommeaux, Frank Rudzicz, Keith Vertanen
Venue:
SLPAT
SIG:
SIGSLPAT
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
32–36
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/W19-1705
DOI:
10.18653/v1/W19-1705
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Usman Sohail and David Traum. 2019. A Blissymbolics Translation System. In Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop on Speech and Language Processing for Assistive Technologies, pages 32–36, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
A Blissymbolics Translation System (Sohail & Traum, SLPAT 2019)
Copy Citation:
PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/W19-1705.pdf