This work categorizes Japanese Sign Language (JSL) toponyms, or place names, and examines factors that potentially affect their structure. Exonyms, influenced by the source Japanese name, and endonyms, independent JSL names, contrast structurally in that exonyms tend to emerge as compounds while endonyms conform more closely to canonical…

The following article looks into the question of negative affixation in Polish Sign Language. Until today only one negative prefix and one negative suffix were recognized in Polish Sign Language. Our research investigates farther these two affixes looking into their etymologies, constraints and new examples of their use. The negative prefix…

One of the fundamental issues for a language is its capacity to express argument structure unambiguously. This study presents evidence for the emergence and the incremental development of these basic mechanisms in a newly developing language, Central Taurus Sign Language. Our analyses identify universal patterns in both the emergence and…

By providing evidence that sign language is an autonomous language, research has contributed to various changes both within and beyond the signing communities. The aim of this article is to present an example of how sign language change is driven not only by language-internal factors but also by changes in language perception, as well as in the…

In this article, we examine various strategies used to express cardinal numbers in Yucatec Maya Sign Languages (YMSLs) from three historically unrelated communities in Yucatán, Mexico: Chicán, Nohkop, and Cepeda Peraza. Our findings describe some numeral strategies, which remained unattested in previous accounts, and demonstrate that YMSL numerals…

Ethiopian Sign Language (EthSL) is one of the underresearched languages of Ethiopia although it is used by more than a million members of the Deaf community. Not much is known about the language, particularly its use and current status. In addition, its users within the Deaf community have begun addressing the issues of equality, participation,…

Slovene Sign Language (SZJ) has as yet received little attention from linguists. This article presents some basic facts about SZJ, its history, current status, and a description of the Slovene Sign Language Corpus and Pilot Grammar (SIGNOR) project, which compiled and annotated a representative corpus of SZJ. Finally, selected quantitative data…

Sign language interpreters work with a variety of consumer populations throughout their careers. One such population, referred to as "emergent signers," consists of consumers who are in the process of learning American Sign Language, and who rely on interpreters during their language acquisition period. A gap in the research is revealed…

This article puts forward a solution to the impending shortage of culturally and linguistically competent interpreters: the education of heritage signers as heritage language learners. It examines the current landscape of American Sign Language (ASL) as a course of study and the difficulties heritage signers report when they begin learning ASL. In…

Support for baby signing (BS) with hearing infants tends to converge toward three camps or positions. Those who advocate BS to advance infant language, literacy, behavioral, and cognitive development rely heavily on anecdotal evidence and social media to support their claims. Those who advocate BS as an introduction to another language, such as…

This article proposes an answer to the primary question of how the American Sign Language (ASL) community in the United States conceptualizes (im)politeness and its related notions. It begins with a review of evolving theoretical issues in research on (im)politeness and related methodological problems with studying (im)politeness in natural…

In sign language studies, it is generally assumed that a sign can be divided into several phases in time (preparation, stroke, and retraction) and that the stroke contains all of the necessary information. However, this has not been tested empirically. In order to learn where the information truly resides, we present an experiment that…

This article examines sign languages that belong to a complex of indigenous sign languages in Mesoamerica that K'iche'an Maya people of Guatemala refer to collectively as Meemul Tziij. It explains the relationship between the Meemul Tziij variety of the Yukatek Maya village of Chican (state of Yucatan, Mexico) and the hitherto undescribed Meemul…

A three-month project in which a blind hearing adult learned manual communication techniques for the deaf is reported. The instructional methods and reactions of teacher and student are presented. Finger spelling proved more useful than American Sign Language for the blind person as it enabled the blind user to follow English syntax. (PMJ)

Presents a list of classifiers in American Sign Language and describes a study of their semantic characteristics. Classifiers are defined as certain hand shapes in particular orientations that stand for certain semantic features of noun arguments and which may substitute for particular nouns in various semantic environments, thereby functioning as…