Oh yeh definitely. I meant more specifically: might it be possible to capture the electrical signals (much like this current system) from the parts of the motor cortex that create the series of muscle movements that form a 'sign', and then creating a 2d projection/display of these muscle movements and then ... downstream, a gesture recognition solution as u mention (a big downstream challenge).

It sounds like a lot. Was just a thought experiment of how such spinal blocks/paralysis would affect deaf people and how they'd be able to continue to communicate with their deaf partners. Definitely niche but nonetheless interesting, and I think possible using the same general approach as the OP article.

But yeh to then translate gestures to speech is a distinct and incredibly challenging problem on its own as you allude to. Perhaps in the future they can tap into signing/speaking-translators' brains and have AI learn those mappings in a fuzzy way.