given names

[Eva Lindström]

Hi all, I think in Bali (Indonesia), names are simply given by birth
order, regardless of the sex of the child: Wayan, Made, Nyoman, Ketut
-- if there are more children it circles back to Wayan, etc.

Eva

On 23 July 2012 10:53, Ulrike Zeshan <UZeshan at uclan.ac.uk> wrote:
> Hi, most “sign names” in most sign languages are of this type, i.e. the name
> itself gives no clue as to whether the person is male or female. This is
> because sign names are based on the perceived salient characteristics of a
> person, mostly what they look like (e.g. “the one with a mole on the cheek”,
> “the one wearing glasses”), or sometimes a behaviour or other
> characteristic, sometimes in combination with a letter from fingerspelling
> (e.g. “the R-named person who is very clever”).  Of course you can sometimes
> deduce that the person is male or female depending on the local culture,
> e.g. “the one with the long braided hair” in many cultures will with some
> certainty be a female.
>
> The only systematic exception is in the Japanese Sign Language family, e.g.
> in South Korean Sign Language, sign names with male reference have an
> extended thumb, and sign names with female reference have an extended little
> finger (this corresponds to the wider gender marking system). However, this
> is a rare and unusual type of system for sign languages to have.
>
>
>
> Ulrike
>
>
>
>