<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Here are some more responses from Irit Meir and Wendy Sandler regarding the issue of phonological structure in Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language. Note that in response to my suggestion that this information be made available in a website, Wendy said that the team does have a website <a href="http://sandlersignlab.haifa.ac.il/html/html_eng/al_sayyid.html">http://sandlersignlab.haifa.ac.il/html/html_eng/al_sayyid.html</a>, but they have not yet added all the information in the correspondence below, but plan to do so soon.<div><div><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Adam</div><div>--</div><div>Adam C Schembri, PhD</div><div>Project Director, British Sign Language Corpus Project</div><div>Deafness, Cognition and Language (DCAL) Research Centre</div><div>University College London</div><div>49 Gordon Square</div><div>London WC1H 0PD</div><div>United Kingdom</div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><a href="http://www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk/team/adam_schembri.html">http://www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk/team/adam_schembri.html</a></div></div><div><a href="http://www.bslcorpusproject.org">www.bslcorpusproject.org</a></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span></div></span></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div></span></div></span></div></span></div><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; ">On suggestions of similarity between ABSL and Providence Island SL, Irit wrote:</div></div></div></div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div><blockquote type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Hi Adam,</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Since I read Washabaugh's book on Providence Island SL quite recently, the differences between the two language situations (ABSL and PISL) is still fresh in my mind. First, there is a difference in numbers: in PI there were about 20 deaf people, who lived in different villages which didn't have daily contact with eachother. So in any one village there were 5 deaf people max, I think, and they met with other deaf people only on rare occasions. In ABSL there are more than 100 signers in a very small village (3,500 people). So the precentage is much much higher, and there is a lot of regular contact between deaf people in the village, as Wendy pointed out. It's true that the (extended) family is still the most important socio-linguistic unit, and there are differences between families. But it's not the case that contact between members of different families are rare.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Secondly, Washabaugh gives the impression that PISL is very much context dependent, and that stretches of discourse are almost incomphensible out of context. ABSL seems to be different: people talk about many different subjects, and seem to convey and understand ideas very effortlessly, like members of any other linguistic community. We also have had the experience of working on video-taped stretches of signing, and signers (from other families for that matter) could understand, translate<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and gloss it for us. If the system was context dependent, we wouldn't expect them to be able to do it. It is true that some of the signing of older signers is more context-dependent, and our consultants weren't quite sure how to translate some parts of their narrative. But with the younger signers we didn't find that. So at least the ABSL of younger people (in their 30s more or less) seems to be not context-dependent.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Washabaugh also mentions that PISL signers do not use their signing in a metalinguistic way, to talk about the language itself. Our ABSL consultants do use their language to talk about the language (to compare different signs of different people, for example), they do have namesigns for themselves and for places. They had no problem whatsoever performing the linguistic tasks we asked them to (e.g. to describe a clip to an addressee, and then the addressee has to choose the picture that matches the description, and even a more elaborate task that elicits complex sentences). Interestingly, some of the old ISL signers who were asked to perform these tasks had a harder time than the Bedouins. And, ABSL signers who know ISL as well can translate from one language to the other, so they really have a clear notion of their language as opposed to the "Jewish" SL (and they can talk about the differences between the two languages).</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">You suggest that "I'm still wondering if it's in fact a collection of emerging ABSL</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">varieties/family-based lects rather than simply one variety: ABSL".</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Well, I think we can say that there are a few varieities, at least in terms of some vocabulary items. But since we find so much variation in other SLs as well, I am not sure that we can talk about "simply one variety" of any language. So ABSL is not different from other SLs (or at least some other SLs) in that respect.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Best,</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Irit</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div></blockquote></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>In response to my comments about phonological/phonetic variation in ABSL compared to older signed languages and on issues of language use in the community (is the ABSL community really one 'speech community', as sociolinguists might say, or a collection of home sign systems or separate language varieties?):</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Interesting to hear about the variation in Auslan.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>We are now doing</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">some comparisons with other sign languages.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div></blockquote> <blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">The sociology of communication in the village is one of a language</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">community.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>We don't have isolated signers in hearing families, but</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">a village with many deaf people, often many within a nuclear family,</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">plus co-siblings, etc., and many hearing people who also know sign</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">language.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>There are community gatherings such as weddings where</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">hands fly everywhere you look; deaf (and hearing) kids from</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">different families play together, go to school together.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Deaf women</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">from different families socialize together.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Deaf men as well.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">is a language community situation, not a home sign situation.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>As</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">far as the language goes, it doesn't look like a home sign.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>People</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">have elaborate conversations in real time.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>There is regular word</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">order, not only of subject object and verb but of head and modifier,</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">across the village.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The language has its own kind of classifier</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">compound or affix construction (that we haven't written about yet),</div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">not like the classifier <span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: -1; ">constructions seen in other sign languages.</span></div></blockquote><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> <blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Carol's had experience with home signers, and I've documented one</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">myself.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>This is not home sign.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It's a new language in a small</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">community.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">We are very interested in the variation we get, and in the idea that</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">'in the wild', the family unit is important for language</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">development.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> ....</span>this is the first time I've been</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">interested in socio-linguistics!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>There is a story there that we are</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">beginning to investigate.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Thanks for your interest and the exchange of ideas.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Best,</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Wendy</div> </blockquote><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> </div></blockquote></blockquote></div><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">Professor Wendy Sandler</div><div>Director, Sign Language Research Lab</div><div>Rabin Building</div><div>University of Haifa</div><div>31905 Haifa</div><div>Israel</div><div>tel: +972-4-824-9395</div><div>fax: +972-4-824-9958</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div><a href="http://sandlersignlab.haifa.ac.il">http://sandlersignlab.haifa.ac.il</a>/</div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div>Department of English Language <div> and Literature<div>University of Haifa</div><div>31905 Haifa</div><div>Israel</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></div></span></div></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br></div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div></body></html>