Indian Sign Language

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For the Native American sign language, see Plains Indian Sign Language.

Indian Sign Language (ISL) or Indo-Pakistani Sign Language is possibly the predominant Sign Language variety in South Asia signed by approximately 2.7mn Deaf signers (2003)[1]. However these numbers are somewhat suspect since the Census of India does not list Sign Languages and most studies of the variety have focused on the north and on urban areas[2]. Since deaf schools in the region are overwhelmingly oralist in their approach [3], standardization of Sign Language has not occurred, and pockets of home sign and informal sign languages are widespread. A small number of the Deaf near Bangalore sign American Sign Language owing to a longstanding ASL deaf school there. Nonetheless, sign languages across urban India appear to share about 75% of their vocabularies. The Mumbai-Delhi dialect is the most influential.

While the sign system in ISL appears to be largely indigenous, many elements in ISL are derived from British Sign Language; for example, ISL does not have signs for the Devanāgarī script, and fingerspelling is based on the Latin alphabet.

The Delhi Association for the Deaf is reportedly working with Jawaharlal Nehru University to identify a standard sign language for India.[4]

Since 2001, a group at the Ali Yavar Jung National Institute for the Hearing Handicapped (AYJNIHH) has been working on providing teaching material and training teachers for ISL. The Rehabilitation Council of India and the Ishara Foundation are also involved in ISL training, English through ISL, and other programmes. A number of vocational schools, e.g. ITI Secunderabad use ISL for teaching. Other institutes such as the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing remain exclusively focused on oralism.

The Indian deaf population of 3.1 million is 98% illiterate. In line with oralist philosophy, deaf schools attempt early intervention with hearing aids etc, but these are largely dysfunctional in an impoverished society. As of 1986, only 2% of deaf children attended school.

In 2005, India the National Curricular Framework (NCF) gave some degree of legitimacy to sign language education, by hinting that sign languages may qualify as an optional third language choice for hearing students.

NCERT in March 2006 launched a class III text includes a chapter on sign language, empasizing the fact that it is a language like any other and is “yet another mode of communication." The aim was to create healthy attitudes towards the differently abled.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.) (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition.. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International.. 
  2. ^ Ulrike Zeshan (2000). Sign Language of Indo-Pakistan: A description of a Signed Language. Philadelphia, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co. 
  3. ^ Dilip Deshmukh (1996). Sign Language and Bilingualism in Deaf Education,. 
  4. ^ Press Trust of India (2004-09-16). Standard sign language for the deaf in India soon. Hindustan Times.
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