SLLING-L Digest, Vol 17, Issue 14

Wed Dec 17 18:58:52 UTC 2008

Since Greenlandic is an Inuit language spoken outside Canada, I find  
it reasonable to add a few words about the sign language used in  
Greenland. This is an extract from a forthcoming paper written by  
Brita Bergman and myself:

'Greenland and the Faeroe Islands are still members of what is called  
Det danske rigsfællesskab (‘The Danish Community of the Realm’)  
alongside with Denmark, but have extensive self-government.  
Greenland, which has a population of about 56,000, is a huge  
impassable island, of which about 80% is covered by ice. This  
explains why it took so long before the first deaf Greenlandic  
children received proper education for deaf children. In 1957, two  
deaf Greenlandic children were sent to a school for the deaf in  
Denmark, beginning a practice that continued until the mid 1970s. In  
1978, the first school for the deaf was founded in Sisimiut, which,  
however, has very few children today. The government seems to expect  
it to be possible for the children to stay in their villages after  
cochlear implantation and attend schools for hearing children with no  
sign language support. The sign language used among deaf Greenlanders  
is very close to Danish Sign Language, but possibly considered a  
separate language by the signers.'

Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen

Den 17/12/2008 kl. 17.56 skrev slling-l- 
request at majordomo.valenciacc.edu:

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Wikipedia's list of sign languages: who? (Schuit, J.M.)
>    2. Re: Wikipedia's list of sign languages: who? (Adam Frost)
>    3. Re: Wikipedia's list of sign languages: who? (Albert Bickford)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:09:50 +0100
> From: "Schuit, J.M." <J.M.Schuit at uva.nl>
> Subject: [SLLING-L] Wikipedia's list of sign languages: who?
> To: <slling-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu>
> Message-ID: <1B497454633A91468C9BCF018347C1B303813480 at devries.uva.nl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Hello all,
>
>
>
> Recently I googled an Inuktitut term that was supposed to refer to  
> sign language, and Google gave me directions to a Wikipedia article  
> with a List of Sign Languages. Does anyone know who wrote this?  
> It's for this reason:
>
> To my amazement, this article listed Inuit Sign Language as well as  
> Inuktitut Sign Language, each with a different Inuktitut  
> translation (or I guess it is an Inuktitut translation as I do not  
> know the language). As I am working on a description of (parts of)  
> the Inuit Sign Language used in Canada, I would be interested to  
> know to which languages the labels Inuit SL and Inuktitut SL apply,  
> and where the Inuktitut translation comes from. Does anyone on the  
> SLLing List know who wrote this Wikipedia article? I would like to  
> ask him/her where the information about these two languages came  
> from, as I had not come across it before.
>
> This is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sign_languages
>
>
>
> I hope anyone can inform me!
>
> Best,
>
>
>
> Joke Schuit
>
> Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication
>
> Universiteit van Amsterdam
>
> Spuistraat 210
>
> 1012VT Amsterdam
>
>
>
>
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:59:55 -0800
> From: Adam Frost <adam at frostvillage.com>
> Subject: Re: [SLLING-L] Wikipedia's list of sign languages: who?
> To: A list for linguists interested in signed languages
> 	<slling-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu>
> Message-ID: <1C488A9E-F08D-4F95-83A6-67C0FD58D1BF at frostvillage.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Your guess is as good as mine as the person in the history that wrote
> it last August didn't signin, this only leaving an ip address.
> Hopefully someone here knows or is the one who wrote it.
>
> Adam
>
> On Dec 17, 2008, at 6:09 AM, "Schuit, J.M." <J.M.Schuit at uva.nl> wrote:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>>
>>
>> Recently I googled an Inuktitut term that was supposed to refer to
>> sign language, and Google gave me directions to a Wikipedia article
>> with a List of Sign Languages. Does anyone know who wrote this? It’s
>>  for this reason:
>>
>> To my amazement, this article listed Inuit Sign Language as well as
>> Inuktitut Sign Language, each with a different Inuktitut translation
>> (or I guess it is an Inuktitut translation as I do not know the
>> language). As I am working on a description of (parts of) the Inuit
>> Sign Language used in Canada, I would be interested to know to which
>> languages the labels Inuit SL and Inuktitut SL apply, and where the
>> Inuktitut translation comes from. Does anyone on the SLLing List
>> know who wrote this Wikipedia article? I would like to ask him/her
>> where the information about these two languages came from, as I had
>> not come across it before.
>>
>> This is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sign_languages
>>
>>
>>
>> I hope anyone can inform me!
>>
>> Best,
>>
>>
>>
>> Joke Schuit
>>
>> Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication
>>
>> Universiteit van Amsterdam
>>
>> Spuistraat 210
>>
>> 1012VT Amsterdam
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SLLING-L mailing list
>> SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
>> http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 10:01:53 -0700
> From: "Albert Bickford" <albert_bickford at sil.org>
> Subject: Re: [SLLING-L] Wikipedia's list of sign languages: who?
> To: "A list for linguists interested in signed languages"
> 	<slling-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu>
> Message-ID: <46CB741A4B9048ADA7F3C3D2D7EE13EB at byrd>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Another nameI have read is "Inuk Sign Language", which appears in  
> Jamie MacDougall's paper available at http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/ 
> pi/rs/rep-rap/2000/rr00_17/index.html.  In another paper with a  
> very similar title he has used the name "Inuit Sign Language", see  
> http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3711/is_/ai_n8941972.  So,  
> I suspect they all refer to the same language, but I haven't read  
> the articles in detail to determine that. Further, even if  
> MacDougall uses them interchangeably, someone else might be using  
> the terms to refer to two different sign languages, or there may be  
> more variation from place to place than has been documented yet.
>
> Incidentally, "Inuk" and "Inuit" are autonyms used in the spoken  
> languages of the area (sometimes called "Eskimo" languages but this  
> term is offensive to some people), and are cognate terms.   
> "Inuktitut" is from the same language as "Inuk" and is a derived  
> term, but I don't know exactly what either means (e.g. maybe noun  
> vs. adjective, or people vs. language).
>
> It would be good to settle once and for all how many indigenous  
> sign languages there are among the Inuit/Inuk/etc.  At one point,  
> the Ethnologue actually had an entry for "Eskimo Sign Language" but  
> took it out in the mid-1990s because we couldn't at that time  
> verify the existence of the language.  Now the evidence has  
> appeared for one or possibly more indigenous sign languages in the  
> American Arctic.  Once the situation becomes clear, I would suggest  
> that someone prepare a proposal for the ISO 639-3 standard to  
> establish one or more three-letter identifying codes, which can  
> then be used to help avoid this sort of confusion.  I'd be happy to  
> help if you're interested, Joke.
>
> Albert Bickford
> SIL International
>
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Schuit, J.M.
>   To: slling-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
>   Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 7:09 AM
>   Subject: [SLLING-L] Wikipedia's list of sign languages: who?
>
>
>   Hello all,
>
>
>
>   Recently I googled an Inuktitut term that was supposed to refer  
> to sign language, and Google gave me directions to a Wikipedia  
> article with a List of Sign Languages. Does anyone know who wrote  
> this? It's for this reason:
>
>   To my amazement, this article listed Inuit Sign Language as well  
> as Inuktitut Sign Language, each with a different Inuktitut  
> translation (or I guess it is an Inuktitut translation as I do not  
> know the language). As I am working on a description of (parts of)  
> the Inuit Sign Language used in Canada, I would be interested to  
> know to which languages the labels Inuit SL and Inuktitut SL apply,  
> and where the Inuktitut translation comes from. Does anyone on the  
> SLLing List know who wrote this Wikipedia article? I would like to  
> ask him/her where the information about these two languages came  
> from, as I had not come across it before.
>
>   This is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
> List_of_sign_languages
>
>
>
>   I hope anyone can inform me!
>
>   Best,
>
>
>
>   Joke Schuit
>
>   Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication
>
>   Universiteit van Amsterdam
>
>   Spuistraat 210
>
>   1012VT Amsterdam
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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> End of SLLING-L Digest, Vol 17, Issue 14
> ****************************************
>

Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen
Department of Scandinavian Studies and Linguistics
University of Copenhagen
Njalsgade 120
DK-2300 Copenhagen S.
Denmark
tel. #45 3532 8664
eep at hum.ku.dk

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