UN Is sign language international?
17
DVINE project, Erasmus + funding. Study Unit 4. Diaconia University of Applied Sciences. Ulla Niittyinperä.
Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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Hello divine students, my name is Golan, it temperature and
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I work in the Daikon, a University of Applied Sciences,
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we call it dark in Finland.
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Ah very often people ask from me when they hear
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that I teach and learn, I have learned sign language
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in Finland.
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I work as a sign language interpreter trainer and also
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an interpreter here in Finland.
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So they asked me is the sign language international language
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and that's kind of a very very very very general
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move and now I'm going to break that we mute
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and tell you why the sign language is not international.
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First we need help from linguistics.
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So linguistics research languages and they have make a conclusion
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that it's not impossible to have a kind of international
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languages. So there is in the spoken languages they have
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tried to create an esperanto for example, But there is
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only about 1000 people in the Europe who are using
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that. So there has not been the linguistics or the
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people in the world, they have not succeed to create
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an artificial language that somebody makes a language.
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So international sign language is not possible to do to
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do also this kind of creation of the language thing.
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So sign languages are natural languages in each country where
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they born, they are not invented not by hearing people
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or not anyone has just invented silom is or something,
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they are not that kind of language is There is
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estimated that there are at least 300 research Sign languages
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around the world, but some researchers say that there might
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be over 1000 different sign languages.
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There is a difficulty to separate.
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Is one sign language, is it a kind of dialect
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of the other sign language or is it a real
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different sign language?
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There is a research comparing of the science, are they
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different enough to make own language or is it a
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dialect of that other sign language?
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For example, here in Finland we have to sign languages,
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finished signing language and Finnish, Swedish sign language.
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So we are even a small country, we do have
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to sign languages and this side languages, they are born
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in the deaf communities, the language users create and they
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actually owned the sign language that they use deaf communities
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born usually in the deaf schools in that 18:00 or
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19:00 in europe, the sign language started to develop in
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the deaf schools where the people get together and they
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start to use the language and create, create more science
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and structures.
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And so there were always Children of the death adults
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and they were more skilled to use the sign language
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than the Children of the hearing parents.
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So he has learned the sign language from each other
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in the deaf schools and also there were deaf teacher,
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so they learn from them and then we need geography
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to break them.
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Youth. If you think about these deaf schools and communities
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around the world, they are usually minorities in the country
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and in the history of death didn't have much possibilities
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to travel.
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Even anyone didn't have, we didn't have airplanes or boats
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also, so we didn't travel and we didn't have a
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video cause so it was not possible to create a
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common language for example, for the death in Finland and
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death in Nepal and death in Vietnam because they never
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met, they didn't have any conduct and uh their schools
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so developed around the world and I have visited in
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Finland, Nepal, Vietnam Norway Ethiopia, Tanzania japan.
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They all have their own kind of deaf schools and
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also they have all the communities in Nepal and Vietnam
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Finland and they are usually minorities in the, in the
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hearing community.
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There is one interesting example uh, in the usa, its
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um art house wine yard, it's a small island there
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and they're the minority was not actually uh minority, but
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it was kind of a society.
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Uh people always deaf people dream about the community or
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the country that could be a deaf society and they
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would like to live in the society that everybody knows
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how to sign, it would be easy to live there.
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And marc Marcus one yard was that kind of uh
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Place in the 19th century because there was deafness that
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came from their families and it was originally from England
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and they, there was a lot of people living in
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the Martha's vineyard at that time and so everybody knew
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sign language.
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Almost everybody also the hearing people and deaf people.
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So there was two languages in their use and it's
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very interesting to read about the history of Martha's vineyard
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and it was kind of a country of the death
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or small small society for the death in that time.
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And the sunshine language developed there very much yeah but
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so it was not possible to create a common language
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by the linguistics or by the geographical things and the
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culture uh culture and the language.
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They are very very very much tied to each other.
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If you think about cultural things there is a for
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example how to explain your family members I think in
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Finland and Nepal and Vietnam and Norway and Turkey.
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We explain our family in very different ways we have
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in Finland a very small core family but in Nepal
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for example you have very extended family and you have
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also very much more much much more signs for relatives
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than we do have in Finland.
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I have seen your dictionary.
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So I know and the religions for example Nepal and
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Vietnam you have very much different holidays and religion allow
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habits and places and temples and it's very different from
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for example what finished deaf people where they go to
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the church.
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They sign it differently than the temple.
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Yeah and it's about the politics, cultural things.
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They what kind of what kind of acceptance has the
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language has in the politics or what is the history
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of the country and how the culture has developed.
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Yeah. Cultural thing is also borrowing.
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We borrow culture and we borrow words and language from
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there cultures that we admire.
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So american sign language has been a very much borrowed
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language to the other sign languages as well as american
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culture has come around the world and media has a
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very strong effect to the side language culture.
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Is it for example, sign language visible on the television
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or not.
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And the cultural thing is also the famous people, the
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celebrities in that community or in the cultural community of
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the country who are the famous people in my country.
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And the language thing is about the culture is also
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for example on the picture here you can see ah
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afford but the make in Finland, it's like a hunk
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of meat but inter finished words, it's like a robber's
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roast. So this is very traditional food we do in
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Finland a real slow food.
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It stays ours under them, under the uh kohl's and
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under the earth there is a meat prepare prepared in
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that way.
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That's also pro food is also cultural thing and how
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we prepare it, sign it differently.
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We just kind of sign a rubber meat.
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It didn't, it doesn't mean anything to deaf people from
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the different cultures or here you can see pictures of
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the different snow that we have in Finland In Finnish
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spoken language, we have over 60 words for the snow
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and we do have many signs for the snow also.
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But if the finish there are signing about the snow,
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the basic sign is snow.
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But when there's such snow is coming very slowly it's
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like this and when it's coming very roughly it's like
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this or is it a good snow to ski then
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it's signed like this.
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And is it uh Isis, no is it like this?
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And so there are very, very much cultural things and
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like language uh, language point of view that are connected
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to each other.
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So that silence cannot be international because it's so tight
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to the culture where the people are living and then
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to politics and history.
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The famous people in Finland we call car Oscar mom,
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he's here, he is like a father of the finished
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sign language And he traveled as a young students to
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Sweden to studies in the University of Stockholm and he
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learned the Swedish sign language.
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And when he came back to Finland he brings this
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sign and it's back here and he kind of mixed
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it with the Finnish science and the Swedish son.
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So our history is uh uh, affecting to this language
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that we are using still in Finland.
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And of course the same thing is for example in
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Vietnam. I have heard that you have for example at
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least three different sign languages and the history, history and
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geographical things make this because you have people living in
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the north and people living in the south and there
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was a war and different areas.
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They didn't have a connection to each other.
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Even the deaf schools or the Vietnamese didn't trouble in
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the early phases.
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So, So it cannot be one Vietnamese sign language in
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the country because of the political and historical things.
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I know there is a willing to do some kind
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of combination to get some kind of language that everybody
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understands. But it needs much research and agreement about which
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challenge you are going to use for example, in the
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television. So that ah most of the people can understand
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the language mm and then at least okay, in sign
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language is not international, but you have maybe heard about
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international sign or international signing and yes, that's a thing,
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a method that this very important for the deaf people
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when they're trouble or in that international meetings or in
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the World Federation of the death.
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They use that in the videos also.
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It's very fun to know and impractical to know.
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But that's a different to the natural sign language.
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Is is that, that is not a natural, it is
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not anyone's um Arthur Dong or any deaf mother don't
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teach this to their child.
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Uh, and it's always depending on the context and uh,
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it varies a lot when people meet, they mix kind
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of to sign languages or three, I'm not what is
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common in this.
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This uh, there's the structure, the structure of language is
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very visual and iconic and it uses very much pantomime
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and it borrows a much science from the american sign
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language. But if you like to learn here is a
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link, you can find it also learn 100 international science
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in google.
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So in Youtube is a video that you can learn.
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What is there?
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The basic science of the international Sign.
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If you meat deaf people in that context, for example,
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hope and thank you.
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These are very understandable around the world.
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Are they are not anyone's a mother tongue or the
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national asylum.
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That was all for me for now.
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Thank you.
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Right.