query: relationships between sign languages

[Jens Heßmann]

Sorry, hit the send-button before I had finished writing ...


>
> Europe - Israel

A few years ago, Wendy Sandler showed a tape of Israeli Sign Language in a
meeting, and I was most surprised to see quite a few not very  that seemed
very similar to, if not the same as, certain signs of DGS (German SL). The
rather non-iconic sign for WAIT is a point in case. It seemed plausible then,
and still seems to
make sense now, to assume the workings of a particularly poignant historical
irony
behind this: A number of Jewish Deaf survivors of the Holocaust in
Nazi-Germany went to Israel. Among them were Deaf people who had visited the
Jewish Deaf School in Berlin-Weissensee (called the "Israelitische
Taubstummenanstalt"), a school known for its high educational standards.
Apparently, some of those well-educated Jewish emigrants came to assume
influential positions in the Israeli Deaf community and thus served to pass on
German signs to Israeli Sign Language.

Jens Hessmann


Hochschule Magdeburg-Stendal (University of Applied Sciences), Germany
jens.hessmann at sgw.hs-magdeburg.de