Sign Language of Turkey

[ENGIN ARIK]

Last week there was a discussion on possible names for the sign
language used in Turkey.  We got a lot of helpful responses regarding
this issue. We would like to clarify first of all that we are not proposing
of to name the language in the name of the deaf community in Turkey
since this is something they should decide certainly. Rather, our aim is
find a suitable abbreviation for our international publications and
discussions. As result of the responses we got from you in the list, we
think the best abbreviation would be SLT, Sign Language of Turkey. We
got in touch with researchers working on sign language in Tunisia and
found out that the name is LST (in French). Thus SLT will not overlap
with this language. We are also aware of the political issue that might
arise if we call it Turkish sign language since there are other ethnic
signers in Turkey who are not necessarily Turkish but might be using the
same language. Finally we asked the native signers about how they call
their language.  They call is just  ϼ saret dili  l  meaning Sign Language.
So, thanks again for all your interest.

Best regards

Engin Arik
Department of Psychology
Koc University
Istanbul, Turkey