Sign Language of Turkey

[Inge Zwitserlood]

Question: Since the Deaf in Turkey call their language ü saret dili, why is
the abbreviation not USD? This would not be in the way of any sign language
for which SL is used in the abbreviation.
Best,
Inge Zwitserlood

At 16:28 12-12-01 EET, you wrote:
>Last week there was a discussion on possible names for the sign
>language used in Turkey.  We got a lot of helpful responses regarding
>this issue. We would like to clarify first of all that we are not proposin=
>g
>of to name the language in the name of the deaf community in Turkey
>since this is something they should decide certainly. Rather, our aim is
>find a suitable abbreviation for our international publications and
>discussions. As result of the responses we got from you in the list, we
>think the best abbreviation would be SLT, Sign Language of Turkey. We
>got in touch with researchers working on sign language in Tunisia and
>found out that the name is LST (in French). Thus SLT will not overlap
>with this language. We are also aware of the political issue that might
>arise if we call it Turkish sign language since there are other ethnic
>signers in Turkey who are not necessarily Turkish but might be using the
>same language. Finally we asked the native signers about how they call
>their language.  They call is just  «ü saret dili  l  meaning Sign Language.
>So, thanks again for all your interest.
>
>Best regards
>
>Engin Arik
>Department of Psychology
>Koc University
>Istanbul, Turkey
>

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Inge Zwitserlood, UiL OTS
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