Copyright kyodonews
TOKYO - With use of hearing aids and cochlear implants banned during the Deaflympics kicking off in Tokyo next month, some athletes have developed optimized hand signs for speedy communication on the field of play. At a training camp in August, Japan's men's football team developed methods like finger spelling to convey information on the pitch. With the team favored to reach the top of the podium at the games, captain and goalkeeper Takumi Matsumoto said they developed the signs following suggestions from some players who had returned from stints at European clubs. There is an advantage in "communicating efficiently by using concise expressions" given the width of the pitch and continuous flow of play, said Matsumoto, 36, who was born with congenital hearing loss and has been wearing hearing aids since age 3. In other sports, the Japanese women's basketball team uses different hand signs to represent specific terminology. Communication has become more active compared with when they relied on unspecified gestures, they said. Sign language will be the main form of communication at the games running from Nov. 15 to 26, which will see Japan host them for the first time and the capital welcoming some 6,000 athletes and officials from around 80 countries and regions. But it is not only the athletes who will use sign language, with spectators also encouraged to use "cheer signs" to show support from the stands. Japanese Sign Language and International Sign are mutually unintelligible in the same way spoken Japanese and English are. To address this, technology will be employed to ensure smooth communication between different languages, regardless of whether they are spoken or signed. Translation support systems utilizing tablets and display screens and allowing for both audio and text input are expected to play a vital role in communication during the event.
