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HNS2CF: A Mapping Tool from HamNoSys to SL CatForm

Over the past six decades, a variety of systems have been developed for representing sign language forms, from Stokoe Notation (Stokoe, 1960) to SignWriting (Sutton, 1999) and lexical database schemas. Each was designed with specific goals and applications, leading to a fragmented landscape of representations. To enable greater interoperability and data sharing among sign language users and researchers, we propose a robust approach to translating between notation systems. As a first step in this direction, we introduce a formal mapping framework between HamNoSys and the SL CatForm coding schema, describe its implementation, and present empirical evidence of its performance. An extensive evaluation of mapping mismatches revealed improvements to the mapping logic needed to further advance the HNS2CF mapping tool. However, the initial version of the system already achieves an overall accuracy of 76.7% and an in-depth analysis reveals that many apparent mismatches stem from annotator disagreement rather than mapping errors, indicating that the tool’s actual accuracy is even higher. These results demonstrate the feasibility and promise of establishing mapping mechanisms across sign representation systems.