**View my talk in ASL and English here** (captions included):
@[youtube](https://youtu.be/MQMlHsfsGS4)
Transcript: https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/A-socio-historical-description-of-Bay-Islands-Sign-Language-another-puzzle-piece-in-the-diversity-of-signing-communities--A_ayemulfyRIU9na1YrzOdxXAQ-9VmA2mB8287xjiNfbmHtq
Link: https://youtu.be/MQMlHsfsGS4
Abstract
ᐧBay Islands Sign Language (BISL) is a small indigenous sign language used by deaf-blind, deaf-sighted and hearing-sighted people in the Bay Islands of Honduras in the Caribbean Sea. Prior to a language documentation project in 2018, BISL was undocumented and undescribed. Based on fieldwork using linguistic ethnography, I present the sociohistorical background of BISL. Specifically, I describe the usage of the language, its emergence and transmission, and the demographics of the language community. Finally, I describe factors affecting the vitality of the
language.
Sign languages are usually categorised as Deaf community sign languages or village sign languages (Meir et al. 2010). It has been shown that this current distinction fails to encompass the full range of visual signing situations (for example Green 2014; Nyst 2007; Reed 2019). This presentation adds to the discussion on the worldwide diversity of signing situations especially in the tactile-gestural modality.
References
Green, E. M. 2014. “The nature of signs: Nepal’s deaf society, local sign, and the production of
communicative sociality.” PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley.
Meir, I., Sandler, W., Padden, C., & Aronoff, M. 2010. Emerging sign languages. In M.Marschark & P. E. Spencer (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Deaf Studies, Language, and Education, 2 (pp. 267–280). Oxford University Press.
Nyst, V. 2007. A Descriptive Analysis of Adamorobe Sign Language (Ghana). LOT.
Reed, L. 2019. “Sign Languages of Western Highlands, Papua New Guinea, and their Challenges for Sign Language Typology”. Master’s thesis, The Australian National University, Canberra.
