Q re: use of ASL and ASL-based SLs worldwide

[Soya MORI]

 Hello, everyone. Mike, thank you for your e-mail.

  Mike wrote on Tue, 25 May 2004 00:58:14 +0900
 $B!! (Bwith Subject of Q re: use of ASL and ASL-based SLs worldwide


> Also, from the limitted Deaf contacts
>I've had from the Philippines, there appears to be an indiginous SL used by
>the Deaf community there in addition to ASL; the Ethnologue
>(http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=PSP) confirms this, saying
>that Philippine Sign Language (aka Local Sign Language, Filipino Sign
>Language, FSL) is "[r]eported to be very similar to ASL" (for "very similar"
>should we read "very similar, but still distinct?"). Again, my question
>would be what is the distribution pattern between the two SLs: do (all) Deaf
>people know BOTH SLs, and if so when do they use which one (and in
>particular, when do they use ASL)? (Perhaps Mori Soya has more information
>on the situation in the Philippines... Soya, you listening?)

 As for FSL, Dr. Liza Martinez is doing a great job and she and Deaf people
from the Philippine Deaf Community will publish their Sign Language book
soon with financial assistance from Japanese Embassy in the Philippines.
We can learn much about their sign language from the book.  Though some words
are borrowed from ASL, their sign language is still distinct language from
ASL. Their Sign Language has a complex structure with their old native sign
language as a basic structure and newer ASL as a superficial structure.


Soya MORI
President
Japanese Association of Sign Linguistics
E-mail:soya_mori at ide.go.jp