names of signed languages

[Dan Parvaz]

> I would like to suggest to be cautious about assigning the name of a sign
>  language accordinng to the political country where it is used, be it based on
>  English (JoSL...) or on the local spoken language (LIU...) because it may
 turn out
>  that the sign language used in the neighboring country ot countries is the
 same.

Don't think this doesn't keep me up at night.  It is *probably* (more work
needed!) more accurate to say that what is used in Jordan is a dialect of
"Levantine Sign Language" (what do you think... Lughat ul-Ishaara
ash-Shaamiyya, or LIS?  It's already taken by the Italians! :-).  However,
Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian, and Jordanian Deaf don't communicate with some
effort.  THe same might be said of DGS and OeGS (Austrian) signers.  I feel
that I'm going to go with LIU as a working title until either (a) the
distinction no longer holds, or (b) I get lynched the next time I'm in Amman.

Namaste,

Dan.

PS: I saw a sign PAKISTAN used by Deaf Pakistanis in international settings
that was based on the BSL manual letter 'P'. Does this sign have no common
currency in Pakistan proper?  I know this sounds silly (signed languages and
spoken langauges are separate, yatta yatta yatta), but "Bhaarat" sounds too
embroiled in Hindu mythology to be acceptable to a Muslim.