Purpose
We want to share information about sign languages and Deaf communities. We want people to find information easily about organizations working with them, what projects they are doing, and what they have published. We especially are interested in information about Bible translation and Christian ministry activity. We also include information about language survey, linguistic analysis, deaf education, and other related activities.
Values: What is important to us?
- Sharing: We share information so we can help each other.
- Contribution: We want many organizations to benefit from the data and contribute new data
- Community: We will build a community that trusts each other.
- Equality: We share the data equally. We share control over the database. No one organization “owns” it. We will make it easy to transfer management of the system from one organization to another.
- Accuracy: We will keep information up-to-date, accurate, and easy to understand.
- Focus: We will include enough details to help each other with Bible translation, church growth, and language development.
- Transparency: We only include data that we can share. We don’t include any data that we don’t want to share with each other.
- Security: We will keep the data safe and secure.
- Bilingual Output: We will show data in both signed and written languages as much as we can.
- Bilingual Input: We will make it easy for people to contribute new information in their language: either a sign language or a written language.
- Flexible: We will add new kinds of data. We want a system that we can expand easily. We want to tie our data to other people’s data.
What organizations use the database?
Regional Deaf associations
- Africa Deaf Ministry Alliance (ADMA)
- Asia-Pacific Sign Language Development Association (APSDA)
- Americas Development Sign Language Association (ADSLA)
- European Deaf Christian Bible Translation (EDCBT)
Other organizations
- Deaf Bible Society (DBS)
- Deaf Harbor
- Deaf Missions
- DOOR International
- Global Partnerships (Wycliffe)
- 55 Table and Mission Mutual (ETEN)
- Pioneer Bible Translators (PBT)
- Progress Bible
- SIL International:
- Global Sign Languages Team (GSLT)
- SIL’s corporate research department
- United Bible Societies (UBS)
If other organizations share our values, we want to work with them in the future. Other organizations can use the data and they can help improve the data.
Who can use this information?
The database is not public information. It is for partner organizations that trust each other and work together well. Only those partners can see the information and suggest new information. But, we do want to expand to include other partner organizations. Talk to the operations committee if you have ideas about other organizations.
Each partner organization decides which of their staff can use the database.
Right now, we have to be careful. Some information in the database is sensitive. It needs to be kept private. If it becomes public, people might be in danger. Other information could be public, but we’re not ready to share it yet. We need to clearly identify what information is private and what can be public. We do want to make the public information available to more people. We know it will help many people in signing communities. But, we can’t yet. Please do not give any information from the database to people or organizations outside the community of partners.
First, we need to discuss security with all our partners. We need feedback from everyone involved. We will move carefully. But, eventually, we do want to share information to more people.
For more information, see our Terms of Use.
What type of data is in the database?
| Languages and communities | Activities, projects, and organizations | Publications and content |
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Operations committee
We have a committee that is in charge of developing and managing the database. We call them an “operations committee”. They do many things:
- Communicate with users about the database.
- Communicate with partners about what other partners can join.
- Ask for money to fund the database and plan how to use the money best.
- Make changes in how the database works.
- Choose the editorial committee and help them with difficult decisions about data.
- Control who can access the database.
Right now, the operations committee is four people:
- Albert Bickford, SIL-GSLT
- Adan Burke, Global Partnerships
- Beth Cook, DOOR
- Dan Eberle, DOOR
We are looking for more people to join.
Maybe you have questions about these things:
- how to use the database
- its goals
- new features that you want
- what partner organizations are involved
- what information we can share
- what information needs to be kept secret
Contact us at:
Editorial board
We have a team of skilled editors. We call them an “editorial board”. They take care of the data in the database. They are experts in the data that is in the database: sign language communities, sociolinguistics, mission strategy, etc. They receive suggestions from users and add them to the database, and make sure the data is clear and consistent. They also work with other databases to keep our data connected to theirs. If you have suggestions about a language, a project, an organization, anything, please contact them. You can reach them at:
signlanguagedatabase@gmail.com
Right now, the editorial board is just two people:
- Albert Bickford, SIL-GSLT
- Beth Cook, DOOR
We want to add more people soon. We need different kinds of people. We need people who can communicate well with our users. We need people who know different written and signed languages. We need people who are experts in different types of data. Please suggest people who you think could help. Contact us at: