names of signed languages

[Ulrike Zeshan]

Hello all,
I have just read through this discussion and would like to add some of my own
 experiences. Actually, the problem of how to
name a particular sign language is, in may places where research just started,
 much worse than just deciding whether to use
acronyms or spoken language names or whatever. How is that? There are some
 reasons that I want to exemplify with my research
in India and Pakistan.
Personally, I like the idea of using the names used in the spoken language of
 the country. After all, deaf people are
bilingual and also now these names. So in the places where I have been (Karachi
 in Pakistan and New Delhi in India), sign
language would be called isharon ki zuban in Hindi/Urdu, and I have asked myself
 whether I should use this name. In earlier
published sourced, isharon ki zuban was referred to as Indian Sign Language and
 Pakistan Sign Language respectively (both
by foreign researchers and in local publications). But since there is only one
 and the same sign language in Karachi and New
Delhi, these names are now obsolete, and I have used the term Indopakistan Sign
 Language (somewhat based on "Hindopak", which
is used to refer to both India and Pakistan). The reason why I don't use isharon
 ki zuban is that this sign language is
probably more widespread than just the Hindi/Urdu speaking area. Remember that
 there is a multitude of vastly different sopken
languages in the Indian subcontinent. So in Tamil-speaking, Nepali-speaking,
 Malayalam-speaking etc. areas, there would be a
completely different name, eben though the deaf all over India have one and the
 same name for their language which means SIGN
or SIGNING. There is no sign for "language". I would guess that there are many
 countries where one and the same sign language
extends over an area covering several spoken languages, since there are many
 countries that have many spoken languages in a
relatively small area. What to do in these cases? If what the presenters at
 TISLR claimed is true, that there is only one sign
language in South Africa, they would have the same problem. At the moment I am
 not sure about the exact extension of IPSL
 and I don't know what to do if it is discovered that Nepal and Bangladesh also
 use the same sign language. Maybe we will
have to call it "Subcontinental Sign Language" then.
I am personally not very happy with the term "Indopakistan Sign Language", but I
 haven't found any better name yet that does
justice to the actual situation. In India and Pakistan, English is still one of
 the official languages, but what about other
countries where this is not the case? I think the best way is probably to use
 whatever you feel happy with as long as you
remember that other people may not immediately recognize what you are talking
 about. I would be annoyed to read about some
"ISL" somewhere and not get an explanation of what "ISL" stands for. Then in
 time there will naturally develop some sort of
consensus, hopefully. We have seen examples of this on the list (AMESLAN-ASL
 etc.).
Ulrike Zeshan

P.S. The idea of transcribing the signs used by deaf communities for their
 languages does not seem practicable to me (even
if there were a good notation system) because in this case a number of (maybe
 many) sign languages would have the same name.
SIGN in Indopakistan Sign Language looks very much like the German Sign Language
 SIGN, and probably also like the Thai one,
as far as I could tell from the description.