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Zaban Eshareh Irani (ZEI) and Its Fingerspelling System
- Sign Language Studies
- Gallaudet University Press
- Volume 16, Number 4, Summer 2016
- pp. 500-534
- 10.1353/sls.2016.0010
- Article
- Additional Information
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We begin with a brief sketch of the signed language used by the Iranian Deaf community: Zaban Eshareh Irani (ZEI). Then we discuss a system that is frequently employed in signed languages—finger-spelling—which is the representation of characters in written systems by using conventionalized handshapes. Using ZEI naturalistic data, we describe a manual alphabet system (referred to as the Baghcheban phonetic alphabet in this article) that somewhat resembles Cued Speech but has features similar to those of many fingerspelling systems.