Sign Language of Turkey

[Asli Ozyurek]

Dear all,
 Sorry to bother you  all about  this ongoing discussion going on this list
for a long time . But what Ulrike Zeshan  has  suggested as Turk Isaret Dili
has the same ethnic and political problems since not everybody who uses  this
language in Turkey necessarily identifies  themselves as Turkish ( Turk ).
I  find the following statement

"Using T ÿÿ k rather than T ÿÿ kce reflects the fact that TID is
independent from spoken Turkish, so that while it belongs to Turkey and
the Turks (T ÿÿ k), "

as  controversial.  I think  we  have to do further sociological and
anthropological  study  to find out  about the metalinguistic  ideologies of
the  signers in Turkey and  how much they identify  their language as "Turk".
So far I  have not  seen  such  a study. Especially nowadays in Turkey, such
ethnic identity notions are highly politically charged.       Thus till there
is  a linguisitic  anthropological  study  on  this ,  I find it politically
incorrect to impose the notion "Turk"  to this  language. But of  course
each   researcher can use their own terminology for scientific/publications
purposes. Perhaps this debate is relevant for other sign languages as well.
Best regards
Asli Ozyurek, Assist. Prof.
Koc University
Istanbul, Turkey


Ulrike Zeshan wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> for our research purposes we call the sign language 'T ÿÿ k Isaret Dili'
> (abbreviation TID). I think a Turkish abbreviation is preferable to an
> English-based one both for practical reasons (this abbreviation does
> not conflict with other English-based ones) and because we are in
> Turkey after all.
>
> The signers call their language SIGN or TURKEY SIGN (note that the sign
> for SIGN here is different from the sign for SIGN in other countries!)
> The sign (SPOKEN-)LANGUAGE is only used to refer to spoken languages,
> not sign languages.
>
> Note that there is a difference in Turkish between 'T ÿÿ k' and 'T ÿÿ kce'.
> The latter refers to the Turkish language while the former refers to
> anything 'Turkish, in/of Turkey, belonging to the Turks' (right,
> Engin?). Using T ÿÿ k rather than T ÿÿ kce reflects the fact that TID is
> independent from spoken Turkish, so that while it belongs to Turkey and
> the Turks (T ÿÿ k), it is independent of the Turkish spoken language.
>
> Ulrike Zeshan
>
> --- Inge Zwitserlood <inge.zwitserlood at LET.UU.NL> wrote:
> > Question: Since the Deaf in Turkey call their language  ?  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
>
> =====
> Dr. Ulrike Zeshan
> Research Centre for Linguistic Typology
> Institute for Advanced Study
> La Trobe University VIC 3086, Australia
> ph.: +61-3-94673084, fax: +61-3-94673053
> e-mail: u.zeshan at latrobe.edu.au, ulrike_zeshan at yahoo.com
>
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