S Asian Sign Languages

[Mike Morgan]

a group of us sign language researchers, mostly based in Nepal and India,
have been asked to write up an article on "Sign Languages in South Asia"
for a NEW encyclopedia of deaf studies.

As members of the group focuses on Sign languages of Nepal and India
(although among us we also have soem experience with a couple other
neighboruing sign languages), we are interested in collecting basic
information on Sign Languages of the other South Asian countries (in order
that the article can have a bit of "balance" ... and to balance decades of
misleading info regarding the relation between sign languages of the region
(e.g. Nepali Sign Language is clearly NOT closely related to IPSL).

We already have info from researchers on SL of the Maldives, and have some
materials as well (varying qauntity and quality) on sign languages in
Pakistan (esp Karachi) and Sri lanka... but can always do with
corroborating (or opposing) info.

Also, we have enough info on the various so-called "village sign languages"
of the subcontinent.

Anyone with first-hand linguistically informed knowledge of any of the
remaining sign languages (especially: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan),

as the word limit for the article is quite low (1,000 words), the following
basic info is mostly what is required:
1) what is the name of the sign lanuage (in local language(s)
2) how standardized is the sign language
3) how different is it (lexically, and/or grammatically) from neighbouring
sign languages, and from British Sign Language and/or American Sign Language
4) is there a dictionary for the sign language, and if so, how many lexical
items are in the dictionary
5) what research (if any) is there in/on the sign language
6) what finger spelling system(s) is/are generally used within the Deaf
community?

thanks to all for any help you can provide

mike || U C > || мика  || माईक || মাঈক || માઈક || ਮਾਈਕ || மாஇக || マイク ||
მაიკ || ማይክ
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           (( Michael W Morgan, PhD ))
   (new position to be announced shortly!)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"People interested only in the bottom line, seem to have forgotten that the
stars are in the oposite direction" (anon)
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Mos u fshi si miza nën bishtin e kalit.
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