Talk:Arab sign-language family

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2020 and 1 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sapphire8765.

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Plans to revise article - with summary of sections
Hello all, I plan to significantly revise this article, especially over the next few days. I intend to divide this article into sections, and fix the lack of in-text citations. In addition, I have found some good sources that will be useful to add to the article, which I will be doing soon. One section I would like to add is the history section, where I will be writing about genetic deafness in the Middle East and the first school for deaf people in the region. Granted, there is not a lot of information relating to the historical aspects of Arab sign languages, or Arab sign languages in general, but I will do my best to add everything that is available. Some other sections include linguistics (including grammar and vocabulary), the "varieties" (I added it in quotations especially because the varieties seem to be unrelated to one another) of the sign language family, and an "accessibility" section. In the accessibility section, I have plans to include the ease of accessing interpreters in the region, backed with a survey, the inclusion of ArSLs (Arabic sign languages) in the media and also the proposal to "standardise" ArSL (as was mentioned in the introduction of the article) and implement it throughout the MENA region. Sapphire8765 (talk) 10:52, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Proposal of history section
Hello everyone, I have drafted the history section for the article and this is what I have written thus far:

In Arab communities, sign language has been existing especially with the higher rates of genetic deafness compared with many other regions of the world. This is because members of different villages typically prefer to marry someone from the same or a nearby region, hence resulting in the transmission of recessive deafness within generations. Hence, sign language was an existing communication tool for many Arab communities, especially with high rates of deafness, such as the Al-Sayyid Bedouin community, where rate of deafness is as high as 4 percent. The presence of sign language in existing communities is in contrast to the West where sign language exists in and is dominant in institutions dedicated to them. The inclusion of sign language in education has been a relatively recent phenomenon in the MENA region. The first school for the Deaf was established in Lebanon during the late 1950s by Father Andeweg, a Dutch priest. In 1964, Father Andeweg helped to found another institution called Holy Land Institute for the Deaf (HLID), located presently in Salt, Jordan. Sapphire8765 (talk) 07:35, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

New section for article: Linguistics
hi all, i think it will be useful to have a linguistics section for this article: the following is what i have written so far:

Unlike spoken Arabic which is diglossic in nature, where standard (Modern Standard Arabic) and colloquial versions (dialects of Arabic) exist, the same cannot be said for Arabic sign languages (ArSLs). Instead, both the spoken and colloquial jargon are used together in signing.[3]

Grammar The sentence structure of ArSLs is relatively flexible, similar to spoken and written Arabic. One sentence can be signed in different word orders, such as Verb-Subject-Object (V-S-O), Subject-Verb-Object (S-V-O), Object-Verb-Subject (O-V-S) and Verb-Object-Subject (V-O-S.) The tense (present, future or past) is usually referred to in the beginning of the sentence, except when tenses need to be changed during a conversation. In this case, they can be shifted towards the middle or the end of the sentence. [3]

Vocabulary According to M.A. Abdel-Fattah, a linguistic scholar, the vocabulary of ArSLs could originate from:

Loan words from both Europe and America, "Creations"; having existing gestures for verbal words, whether written or spoken, "Miming" physical objects or actions, Compounding two or more signs to create a unique sign, such as "dentist" which is a combination of "doctor" and "teeth".[3] In ArSLs, just like other sign languages, the context of the word depends on the shape of the hand, alongside its position and movement relative to the body. To aid in the meaning of the sign, facial expressions and facial movements are also used.[3]

Most signs in ArSLs are limited to nouns and verbs, but for prepositions and intensifiers, it is the execution of the sign which indicates the two. For example, in Libyan Sign Language, the sign "every day" involves touching the nose with the index finger and repeating it three times.[3]

According to Abdel-Fatteh, certain vocabulary in ArSLs are synosigns, antosigns, homosigns and compounds.[3]

Synosigns are two distinct signs with the same meaning. In ArSLs, these are uncommon. An example of a synosign is in Jordanian Sign Language, where the sign for 'girl' can be done in two different ways.[3] Antosigns are two signs corresponding to opposite words; with both signs having opposite movements. An example of antosigns are the signs for "morning" and "night", where the sign for "night" is movement-wise the reverse of the sign for "morning."[3] A homosign is a sign that can be used for multiple words and the interpretation of which depends on the topic of the conversation.[3] Compounds are signs that use two or more existing signs to convey an idea. Usually the words for which signs need to be compounded don't have corresponding signs. For example, the signs for "doctor" and "teeth" would need to be compounded to sign "dentist."[3]

SOURCE: Sapphire8765 (talk) 16:12, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

New Section: "Accessibility"
Hello all, i thought it would be a good idea to include an "accessibility" section, that mostly discusses unifying Arabic sign language so deaf Arabs can understand each other and how it has been received. in addition, i have also written about services that are available to the deaf community around the MENA region.

"Unified" Arabic Sign Language To unify the Arab World with one distinct sign language that can be understood throughout the MENA region, a dictionary for a standard Arabic Sign Language (ArSL) has been produced in 2004 by the Council of Arab Ministers of Social Affairs (CAMSA).[1][3] This dictionary consists of a combination of signs from a wide range of mostly unrelated Arab sign languages such as Egyptian Sign Language and Jordanian Sign Language. [1]

This "Standardized" Arabic Sign Language has been applied by interpreters in news outlets like Al-Jazeera in their news broadcasting, including simultaneous interpreting. [1][4]

However, the introduction of ArSL has been met with backlash by the deaf community, because of wide disparities between the vocabulary of the standardized version and the native sign languages.[1][3] As a result, it is difficult for the deaf community in the Middle East to understand the Standardized version and so, use it.[1][2][3]

Access to Services An international survey was conducted by Hilde Haualand in 2009, which investigated the accessibility of sign language interpreters, as well as the training and support the Deaf community receives.[5] This survey included the MENA region. Regions that were investigated in the survey included Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, UAE and Yemen.[5]

A participant representing each country in the survey answered five yes/no questions, which included:

If the deaf could access government services[5] If there is a "Sign Language interpreting service" in their country[5] If Interpreters have any interpreting qualifications[5] if there is a Code of Ethics for Interpreters[5] If the government was responsible for their salaries[5] A yes response to each of these questions yields one point, with five points being the maximum for any country. Qatar was the only country in the survey that had five points, meaning they satisfied all the aforementioned five criteria relating to accessibility. Bahrain and Kuwait satisfied the first four questions. Oman, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and UAE had three points, meaning they had answered "yes" to the first three questions. Algeria, Morocco and Lebanon had two points and Yemen had one point. [5]

SOURCES: 1. Al-Fityani, Kinda; Padden, Carol (2010). "Sign Language Geography in the Arab World". Sign languages: A Cambridge Survey: 433–450. 3. ADAM, ROBERT (2015). "Standardization of Sign Languages". Sign Language Studies. 15 (4): 432–445. doi:10.2307/26190997. ISSN 0302-1475. 4. Darwish, A. (2006). "Standards of Simultaneous Interpreting in Live Satellite Broadcasts Arabic Case Study". www.semanticscholar.org. Retrieved 2020-11-16. 5. Haualand, Hilde (2009). "(PDF) Sign Language Interpreting: A Human Rights Issue". ResearchGate. Retrieved 2020-11-16. Sapphire8765 (talk) 13:39, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

New Section for article: "Varieties"
Hello all, I have written up a seperate section for the different languages in the Arab sign language family. instead of just listing every local version, i think it will be good if there is a paragraph for every national sign language. The section is as follows:

Despite having many sign language varieties in the Middle East under the broader "Arabic Sign Language", it is unlikely that any of these languages are related to each other.[1] Among the national sign languages which are rooted in the MENA region are the following, listed in alphabetical order:

Egyptian Sign Language Egyptian Sign Language is used by the deaf community in Egypt.

Emirati Sign Language Emirati Sign Language is a unified sign language for the deaf community in the UAE.

Iraqi Sign Language Iraqi Sign Language is used by the deaf community in Iraq.

Kuwaiti Sign Language Kuwaiti Sign Language is the sign language used by the hearing-impaired people of Kuwait.

Levantine Arabic Sign Language Levantine Arabic Sign Language is utilized by the people residing in the Levant region and includes Jordanian sign language (LIU), Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language and Palestinian Sign Language.

Libyan Sign Language Libyan Sign Language is the sign language of the deaf community in Libya.

Omani Sign Language Omani Sign Language

Qatari Sign Language Qatari Sign Language is a unified sign language for the deaf community in Qatar.

Saudi Sign Language Saudi Sign Language is used by the deaf community in Saudi Arabia.

Yemeni Sign Language Yemeni Sign Language is the sign language used in Yemen.

Thank you. Sapphire8765 (talk) 10:25, 24 November 2020 (UTC)