Search thousands of words in British Sign Language (BSL), the largest collection of BSL video signs online.

Small team. Big hearts.

"There are over 45,000 deaf children living in the UK. 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents with little or no experience of deafness or knowledge of how to communicate with a deaf person." - NDCS Website

Initially Sign Dictionary was conceived in response to all those young Deaf people who have restricted, or no access to sign language. We have devoted our time and resources to create this dictionary, believing it will be great benefit to anyone wishing to learn some BSL or to improve their skills.

Our Team

  • Self portrait of Joel Kellhofer

    Joel Kellhofer

    Joel is a BSL user and active member of the British Deaf Community. He created a highly skilled team who each used their individual areas of expertise to produce this Sign Dictionary. Joel invested in resources and gave thousands of hours of his time over a period of years to progress the Sign Dictionary. He was determined that a rich resource to support the Deaf Community and those learning BSL would be available for free. The hard work of Joel and his team has finally paid off and we hope that you enjoy using the Sign Dictionary.
  • Self portrait of Tessa Padden

    Tessa Padden

    Tessa learned her craft as a linguist and translator from a great generation of BSL teachers and linguists, including Dorothy Miles, Clark Denmark and Frances Elton. She sees herself as carrying on that great tradition, which makes her the ideal presenter/translator for AC2.com production’s BSL dictionary.
  • Self portrait of Dominic Mac Neill

    Dominic Mac Neill

    I am blessed to be part of this team to edit majority of the videos. It was incredible fun experience and fascinating to see all different variations of BSL signs.