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From:
"Angus B. Grieve-Smith" Date: Mon Aug 27, 2001 6:42 pm Subject: Re: Arabian Sign Language | ||||||||||||
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On Mon, 27 Aug 2001, Valerie Sutton wrote: > I hope Mohamed doesn't mind that I post his private message.... I hope not. After all, he addresses it to everyone... > 1 : For the Arabic spoken Language ,it is the same for all Arabic > countries .The differences come because each country has its accent > with some words but it can be understood in other Arabic counties In > the ( ArSL ), there are some different signs but the deaf people can > manage the differences Mohamed, I hope this will explain my question: Whether two varieties are separate languages or dialects of the same language is often a matter of perspective. For example, Spanish and Portuguese are closer to each other than Moroccan Arabic and Iraqi Arabic, but in one case we say that they are separate languages, and in the other we say that they are dialects of the same language. There are limits, though: even though English has borrowed a lot of French words, we still don't say that it's a dialect of French. It's similar with sign languages. We might (at a stretch) say that American Sign Language and Irish Sign Language are dialects of French Sign Language. They are definitely part of the same language family. But we couldn't even try to say that Irish Sign Language is a dialect of British Sign Language, because British Sign Language is a different family. We say this even though Deaf people who speak completely different sign languages can often, with patience and skill, understand each other. So I'm just wondering whether ALL the sign languages throughout the Arab world are dialects of the same language, or whether they are from the same family, or whether it is Deaf people overcoming their different languages using patience and skill. -- -Angus B. Grieve-Smith Linguistics Department University of New Mexico | ||||||||||||
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