Endangered sign languages

[Rudy Troike]

As with the Plains Indian Sign Language, many sign languages around the world
are endangered today, a point that has not received much attention in the
(important) focus on disappearing spoken languages. I just received the
following note from Sam Supalla, who directs the program in Deaf Education
here at the University of Arizona. I thought that others on this list would
be interested.
                         *   *   *
   From what I understand in the European deaf communities, more and more deaf
folks are able to use ASL like many people I encountered in Finland. They were
quite fluent in ASL. I believe ASL is becoming the world signed language. This
does not include the sad fact that ASL is replacing various signed 
languages in
the Third World countries at present. Richard Meier of the University of Texas
wrote a paper on that and he is worried that many signed languages are
disappearing worldwide. I am afraid that this area of concern is not getting
attention as much as it should be.

                        *   *    *
   Rudy

   Rudy Troike
   University of Arizona
   Tucson, Arizona