Catalan Sign Language (LSC) is the language of the community of Catalan signers. Since 2004, the Institut d’Estudis Catalans (IEC) (Institute of Catalan Studies) has supported and promoted different initiatives for the research and dissemination of this linguistic and cultural reality and it has been actively involved in its process of legal recognition both in Catalonia and in the State. The Philological Section (Secció Filològica) has incorporated LSC as another object of study in its scientific activity and it regularly collaborates with the Federació de Persones Sordes de Catalunya (Federation of Deaf People of Catalonia) and with the universities in activities of research and promotion of the LSC.
With the Catalan Sign Languag
e law passed by the Parliament of Catalonia on May 26, 2010, the IEC became the regulatory authority for this language, which promotes research and must establish its standard in the future. We present the first version of the Catalan Sign Language Portal as an initial step in this direction, with the intention of turning it into a reference website that collects all the linguistic resources available in the study of LSC and makes them available to its users, its researchers and society in general.