SLLING-L Digest, Vol 17, Issue 14

Sun Dec 21 03:51:47 UTC 2008

Elisabeth,

what's the name for the sign language used in Greenland - Greenlandic Sign
Language or something like that?

Shane Gilchrist
University of Amsterdam

2008/12/17 Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen <eep at hum.ku.dk>

> 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:
>>
>>   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
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>>>
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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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>>
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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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