SignWriting List Forum| Message 198 | Previous | Next [ Up Thread ] | Message Index |
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From:
Marie Alexander Date: Wed Jun 10, 1998 12:45 pm Subject: Hello from Marie Alexander and the Maltese Sign Language Project | ||||||||||||||||
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I joined your group a wee while ago and I would now like to introduce myself. I am the executive director of the Institute of Linguistics at the University of Malta. I am a linguist but have recently decided that as I am unlikely to live for ever (!) I need to focus on Maltese Sign Language which has been developing very fast the last 15 years or so. There is a great deal one could say about the deaf community in Malta...but I will resist. After a visit to Professor Bencie Woll at City University London, I decided we needed signwriting here...so that's how this all started. I subsequently wrote in with this question: I would appreciate it if anyone can tell me whether signwriting is used expressively only by deaf users and receptively only by researchers. Is it not very confusing for deaf researchers then? I am still struggling with signwriting... I would appreciate some advice. The study of Maltese Sign Language is only just beginning. Maltese Sign Language is only now gaining recognition even by the Maltese deaf themselves. It is not yet used extensively in education and not at all beyond primary education since the majority of children are in the mainstream. Of course it is a vicious circle. It started being used in education once it gained some recognition. It is still a very young language (since the deaf did not previously come together as a community after school) but it is responding very fast to the demands made on it. I would like not to have two ways of signwriting - but need to stay in touch with the rest of the world if possible (maybe that is rather ambitious!). Perhaps my question arises from limited understanding? Can anyone help? Marie Alexander Institute of Linguistics University of Malta Msida MSD 06 Malta (Europe) | ||||||||||||||||
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