Welcome to Global Signbank

Global Signbank is a lexical database for sign languages. It is the successor to the NGT Signbank, the lexical database of the annotated NGT corpora at Radboud University, which include the following:

Currently, the NGT Signbank is expanded by the Signbank project team of the University of Amsterdam (2024-present).  

The lexical database does not presently serve as a dictionary. For each data set, specific conditions apply as to (open or restricted) access. By default, datasets are not accessible to the general public.

Global Signbank is open to host new datasets under certain strict conditions:

  • Lemmatisation guidelines and phonological description of signs follows the conventions laid out in the manual
  • Data become accessible for research use by Radboud University and preferably any non-commercial research (open access). In exchange, the NGT dataset will become fully accessible to depositors of a new dataset.
  • A contribution in kind and/or in cash is made to further software development and/or data hosting, depending on the size of the dataset and the expected and actual use

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