KYOTO — Around 1.2 million people are estimated to use sign language in Japan. While they have to deal with new words and phrases that are constantly emerging in fields such as information technology, many also say they have difficulty expressing subtle nuances peculiar to Japanese.
To address these issues, the first major revision in over a decade to a sign language dictionary is under way, aiming to make sign language easier to understand and use.
University professors, former teachers at schools for the deaf and others gathered in June at a sign language training institute in Kyoto to discuss a wholesale revision of "Nihongo — Shuwa Jiten" ("Japanese Sign Language Dictionary"), a work compiled in 1997 that lists words and phrases along with sample sentences that are useful in conversation.