Sign language is a visual-gestural language mainly used by hearing-impaired people torncommunicate with each other. As in oral language, sign language is not universal; it variesrnaccording to the country, or even according to regions. Ethiopian Sign Language (ESL) is thernsign language of the deaf in Ethiopia.rnHearing-impaired people usually face communication problems when they want torncommunicate with hearing people without signing skill. At present, sign language interpretersrnare used to remove the language barriers between people who are deaf and use sign languagernand people who can hear and speak. However, cost, availability and privacy issues make thisrnan awkward solution at best. A computer application which translates written text into signrnlanguage, would better bridge the communication gap between deaf and hearing worlds.rnThis thesis was therefore to contribute in this area by developing translator software, whichrnautomatically translates Amharic text into Ethiopian Sign Language (ESL). The developedrntranslator is referred in this thesis as AmESL-T.rnThe system is composed of a text-analysis, mapping and sign animation (using 3D avatar)rnmodule. The input for the system is Amharic word, letter and number. The output of thernsystem is avatar animation of Ethiopian sign language. The signs are represented by means ofrnVGuido (the eSIGN 3D avatar) animations. For creating gesture animations, eSIGN editor isrnused. Amharic has complex morphology which makes complete listing of all words in therndatabase impossible. Hence, a morphological analyzer that reduces morphological variants of arnword into a common form is developed and integrated to AmESL-T.rnAmESL-T is constructed as a web application to allow usage to large population. Using therntranslator, it is possible to translate Amharic texts into gestures that a hearing impaired canrnunderstand. The tool is useful in enabling people who donâ€™t know sign language tornAutomatic Translation of Amharic text to Ethiopian Sign Languagernxiirnxiirncommunicate with deaf individuals. The hearing-impaired can also utilize the software torndevelop written language skills. Moreover, it may be used as a teaching tool for Ethiopian signrnlanguage.rnAmESL-T was evaluated in terms of quality of signing and subjective opinions. Quality ofrnsigning was measured based on intelligibility and acceptability of signs. The evaluation resultsrnshowed that the quality of signing and the translation accuracy are acceptable, and it satisfiesrnusers' need. For better translation results, further research areas are also pointed out