query: relationships between sign languages

[Felix Sze]

Dear Adam,

Hong Kong hearing people never use the 'Y' shape to
represent a person. So I think the use of this
classifier has nothing to do with the conversational
gesture among hearing people.

Felix Sze

 --- "Adam Schembri, Deaf Studies"
<Adam.Schembri at BRISTOL.AC.UK>  ºÙü_Ý4šÙ>Þ/« > See
Emmorey & Lane (2000) 'Signs of Language
> revisited' for an
> article by James Woodward on lexicostatistical
> relationships between
> signed varieties in Vietnam and Thailand. It seems
> there has been
> some influence from LSF on Vietnamese Sign Language.
> I think Woodward
> has completed a number of similar studies on other
> signed languages.
>
> (BTW: I am also wondering about areal influences in
> South East/East
> Asia. The use of the Y handshape to represent a
> person has been
> documented for HKSL, Thai SL and Taiwanese SL - does
> anyone know if
> this is related to patterns of conventional gesture
> among hearing
> people in that part of the world, just as the use of
> the V hand for
> 'legs' appears to be in Europe/North
> America/Australasia?)
>
> I believe Australasian Signed English (itself based
> on Auslan) has
> also been used in Papua New Guinea in addition to
> Fiji, but I am not
> aware of any published research on signed languages
> in PNG. I would
> be interested to know more about Indonesian SL, as I
> have seen
> interpreting provided on television there, but it
> doesn't look
> related to any sign language I know, although what I
> saw may have
> been a form of Signed Bahasa Indonesia.
>
> I think some varieties of South African Sign
> Language (SASL) are
> closely related to the BANZSL
> (British-Australian-New Zealand)
> signed language family, and other SASL varieties
> have been more
> influenced by Irish Sign Language (ISL). ISL has
> also had some
> influence on the Auslan lexicon.
>
> Based on casual observation, there appear to be some
> influences from
> LIS (Italian SL) on Albanian SL.
>
> A presentation in Zambian SL at the recent WFD
> congress in Australia
> appeared to be very ASL-influenced.
>
> Adam
>
>
>
> ----------------------
> Adam Schembri
> Centre for Deaf Studies
> University of Bristol
> 8 Woodland Rd
> Bristol BS8 1TN
> United Kingdom
> Telephone: +44 (0)117 954 6909
> Textphone: +44 (0)117 954 6920
> Fax: +44 (0)117 954 6921
> Email: Adam.Schembri at bristol.ac.uk
> Website: www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/DeafStudies

_________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
 ÞXû™Øû5  http://travel.yahoo.com.hk
Comprehensive travel guide at http://travel.yahoo.com.hk