query: relationships between sign languages

[Rebecca Orton]

Hi Ulrike,
While I was doing a grammatical sketch of Italian
Sign Language (LIS) paper
http://www.geocities.com/rebaorton/LIS.htm
I discovered that several Peruvian signs were
identical or similar to the ones in LIS.  I heard
that nuns came from Italy to set up a deaf school
in Peru, and as a result, the sign language is
similar to the one in Italy.  I've also heard
from a deaf Peruvian man that he was able to
converse with a deaf Italian man even though
their languages were supposedly different.
Reba.




 --- Ulrike Zeshan <ulrike_zeshan at YAHOO.COM>
escribi 3   > Dear colleagues,
>
> I am trying to assemble information about
> relationships between sign
> languages around the world. This is part of my
> typological project
> comparing grammatical structures in sign
> languages around the world.
> The relationships I am looking for are not
> necessarily   –  enetic
>  º¶  elationships in the usual sense of the word.
> In fact, I am not at all
> sure that the usual method for establishing
> genetic relationships
> between spoken languages (so-called   ¬[
> istorical-comparative method k   is
> applicable to sign languages at all. However,
> since the sign languages
> we know are generally young languages with a
> documented history, it is
> possible to point to links between them, which
> could be of various
> types. For example, due to colonialization and
> emigration (British Sign
> Language, Auslan, New Zealand Sign Language),
> due to the history of the
> deaf education system (French and American sign
> languages), or due to
> political domination (sign languages in Japan,
> Taiwan and South Korea).
> I am not aware of any published sources
> summarizing such actual or
> supposed relationships between sign languages
> (and would be most
> interested if you know any such sources).
> However, there is much
>   ¬\  necdotal k  information around, I think,
> and I am interested in any
> suggestions. Below I have assembled a list of
> sign languages that may
> be related to each other in some way, and I
> would like to invite the
> specialists in each sign language to comment on
> this list. Do you tend
> to agree or disagree with this list? Can you
> add any further languages,
> or would you change anything in the list? I
> have listed names of
> countries rather than sign languages because
> there are often various
> possible names for a sign language. The
> groupings that seem more
> certain are on top of the list, with less
> certain ones near the bottom
> of the list. Please feel free to comment, and
> thank you very much for
> any contributions.
>
> Ulrike Zeshan
>
>
> List of supposed relationships between sign
> languages (listed by
> country name):
>
> Britain  o  Australia  o  New Zealand
> France  o  USA  o  Russia
> Japan  o  Taiwan  o  South Korea
> USA  o  Uganda  o  Kenya  o  Thailand  o
> Phillipines  o  Malaysia
> Sweden  o  Norway  o  Finland
> Denmark  o  Iceland
> Italy  o  Argentina
> mainland China  o  Hong Kong
> Europe - Israel
>
>
>
>
> =====
> 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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=====
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