Kinship terminology in SLs

[Mark A. Mandel]

You may already be familiar with ASL (American Sign Language) kinship terms, 
but no one has mentioned them in this thread.

In ASL, the locations upper face (forehead to temple) and side or lower face 
(cheek to chin) are morphemes for male and female respectively, originally 
derived from the (Old French SL) signs for 'boy' and 'girl'. In addition to the 
signs for boy, girl, man, and woman, these locations are the sole markers of sex 
in the following pairs of kinship terms:

father : mother
grandfather : grandmother (& "great-...")
son : daughter (< BOY/GIRL + BABY)
brother : sister (< BOY/GIRL + SAME)

They are also used with the initialized terms

Uncle : Aunt

I am out of practice and not at all sure of this, but I recall at least some 
signers distinguishing male and female initialized 'Cousin' in this way, which 
spoken/written French does (and with the same letter) but not English.

 
-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania
 
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