Sign languages in village communities: anthropological and linguistic insights

The book is a unique collection of research on sign languages that have emerged in rural communities with a high incidence of, often hereditary, deafness. These sign languages represent the latest addition to the comparative investigation of languages in the gestural modality, and the book is the first compilation of a substantial number of different "village sign languages". Written by leading experts in the field, the volume uniquely combines anthropological and linguistic insights, looking at both the social dynamics and the linguistic structures in these village communities. The book includes primary data from eleven different signing communities across the world, including results from Jamaica, India, Turkey, Thailand, and Bali. All known village sign languages are endangered, usually because of pressure from larger urban sign languages, and some have died out already. Ironically, it is often the success of the larger sign language communities in urban centres, their recognition and subsequent spread, which leads to the endangerment of these small minority sign languages. The book addresses this specific type of language endangerment, documentation strategies, and other ethical issues pertaining to these sign languages on the basis of first-hand experiences by Deaf fieldworkers.

Front matter --; Contents --; Acknowledgements --; Introduction: Demographic, sociocultural, and linguistic variation across rural signing communities /; Part I. Rural signing varieties: Description, documentation, and fieldwork practice --; Being a deaf white anthropologist in Adamorobe: Some ethical and methodological issues /; Colour signs in two indigenous sign languages /; Demarcating generations of signers in the dynamic sociolinguistic landscape of a shared sign-language: The case of the Al-Sayyid Bedouin /; The Kata Kolok perfective in child signing: Coordination of manual and non-manual components /; The survival of Algerian Jewish Sign Language alongside Israeli Sign Language in Israel /; Signing in the Arctic: External influences on Inuit Sign Language /; An exploration in the domain of time: From Yucatec Maya time gestures to Yucatec Maya Sign Language time signs /; Deaf signers in Douentza, a rural area in Mali /; Language ecological change in Ban Khor, Thailand: An ethnographic endangerment /; Working with village sign language communities: Deaf fieldwork researchers in professional dialogue /; Language index --; Subject index / Vos, Connie De / Zeshan, Ulrike --; Kusters, Annelies --; Adone, Dany / Bauer, Anastasia / Cumberbatch, Keren / Maypilama, Elaine L. --; Kisch, Shifra --; Vos, Connie de --; Lanesman, Sara / Meir, Irit --; Schuit, Joke --; Le Guen, Olivier --; Nyst, Victoria / Sylla, Kara / Magassouba, Moustapha --; Nonaka, Angela M. --; Dikyuva, Hasan --