Mexican Sign Language

[Angus B. Grieve-Smith]

On Thu, 1 Nov 2001, Charlene Nunes wrote:

> I have a student wanting to research Mexican Sign Language.  She is
> having a difficult time finding source material (She reads Spanish and
> English).  If anyone has information on books and references could you
> please email her at:
>
>  aridayyadi at hotmail.com

        I'm replying to the list as well as your student because I think
it's a topic of general interest.

        In the summer of 1998 I and a few others on the list took a
one-week course in Mexican Sign Language offered by Victor Palma and Don
Cabbage in association with the World Mission Society at the Apache Creek
Deaf and Youth Camp in southwestern New Mexico.  I also bought a book and
tape.

        I'll say right now that I'm not a Christian and I don't agree with
the idea of evangelism, but the course was conducted with mutual respect.
Victor is a Deaf native signer of LSM, fluent in ASL, and a very good
teacher and draftsman.  Sometimes he wanted to teach us normative signed
Spanish forms, but when we made it clear that we wanted to see the forms
used in ordinary conversation he was quite willing.

        The book is a simple word list, in a vaguely topical order, with a
series of pictures expertly drawn by Victor along with English and Spanish
glosses.  The video essentially follows the same order as the book.  For
each sign, Victor performs the citation form twice as Don reads the
English gloss and a woman reads the Spanish gloss.

        I would definitely recommend the Mission Society's courses, book
and tape as a starting point.  You can find more about them at
<http://www.missionsociety.com>.

--
                                -Angus B. Grieve-Smith
                                Linguistics Department
                                University of New Mexico
                                grvsmth at unm.edu