Sign Language in Indo-Pakistan: A Description of a Signed Language (review)

This book is an investigation into the linguistic and (to a lesser extent) sociolinguistic structure of the signed language(s) of India and Pakistan, based on the author’s field work in Karachi and New Delhi. It comprises a sketch grammar of Indo-Pakistani Sign Language (IPSL), some discussion of regional variants, a 300-word dictionary, and texts.

Zeshan begins with a discussion of the schooling of deaf children in Karachi and compares it with official policy in India. She discusses the creation of Sign Urdu (the Urdu equivalent of Signed English, a language with signs but with Urdu grammatical structure), developed as a means of making it easier for deaf children to acquire Urdu.

Ch. 2 is concerned with basic handshapes. Interestingly, unlike American Sign Language (ASL) and many of the signed languages of Europe, IPSL does not appear to have Classifier handshapes. Z describes the sign families in IPSL, that is, signs related by common handshapes, place of articulation, movement, or orientation. Compounding is also discussed in relation to sign families.

IPSL has been influenced by several other signed and spoken languages. Z focuses on Hindi/Urdu, English, and other sign languages such as British Sign Language. Influence from Hindi/Urdu is evident in the ‘puns’, such as the sign for the month of June, which is made by imitating crushing a louse between the thumbs, exploiting the similarity between Hindi/Urdu ju:n ‘June’ and ju:n’ ‘louse’. The main English influence in IPSL is the use of fingerspelling of initials for English words. These are not initialized signs, as in ASL; instead, the signers spell the first letter of the word.

The role of nonmanual parameters in IPSL is evident. There are, for example, minimal pairs between signs that differ only in nonmanual parameters, such as the signs for ‘fat’ and ‘strong’ or ‘cold’ and ‘difficult’ which differ only in the facial expression. Z takes this into account in the interlinear glossing of examples; she gives the sign in capitals (the Hindi/Urdu word), a morphological analysis of the signs in English, nonmanual phenomena such as the posture of the signer’s body, mouth patterns, and an English translation of the signed sentences.

Ch. 3 is a discussion of word classes and morphology in IPSL, with emphasis on the realization of tense and aspect and compounding. Z argues that unlike ASL, IPSL does not have distinct word classes. The situation seems more similar to German Sign Language, where there are groups of signs that behave in certain ways but the grouping is more semantic than grammatical. The discussion of syntax in Ch. 4 concerns word order (predicate final) and the use of space in grammar. Some aspects of grammar are signalled by nonmanual parameters such as negation. The final chapter is on discourse strategies.

This is a very important book; it is a contribution to both sign language grammatical studies and linguistic typology and will provide a model for further studies of previous undescribed sign languages.