This book could not have been completed without the help of many dedicated persons to whom I wish to express my gratitude here. My thanks go to the teachers of the ABSA-School, the members of the Karachi Deaf Welfare Association and their president Mansoor Ahmed Bilal, and all the others who have voluntarily served as informants. Their frank and helpful attitude has made it possible for me to gather a rich corpus of data that shows many facets of the language. Considering that the conditions of research work in Karachi have been difficult at times, their cooperation is especially appreciated. The same applies to my deaf informants in New Delhi and the various institutions for the deaf that cooperated with me: the All India Federation of the Deaf, the Delhi Association of the Deaf, the Delhi Federation of Deaf Women, the Delhi Deaf Friendship Club and, above all, the Multipurpose Training Centre for the Deaf. Most of all I would like to thank my bilingual informant Ms. Tayyabah Mansoor, who put a lot of time and effort into helping me to produce the first transcriptions of the sign language texts. These later became the basis for further analysis. Her unexpectedly deep understanding of linguistic matters greatly facilitated the initial stages of work on the text corpus. Further thanks are due to the director of the ABSA-School in Karachi Mrs. Rukhsana Ahsan for providing me with the publications of the ABSA research group, to Ms. Qamar-un-Nisa Khan of the National Institute of Special Education (NISE) in Islamabad for a copy of the NISE’s 1991 dictionary and for information about the NISE’s activities, and to the director of the Department of Special Education at the University of Karachi Dr. Ismail Saad for the help and encouragement that the University provided during my research. Among those who have supported my research in India I would like to mention especially Dr. Onkar Sharma, Mr. Arun Rao and Mr. Arun Kanchan from Delhi, Mr. Samir Ray from Calcutta and Dr. Dilip Deshmukh from Ichalkaranji. Finally I would like to thank all those who led a helping hand to the practical realization of this research project such as video recordings, photographs etc. I am especially grateful to my husband Hamid Mahmood Zeshan, who has been an able organizer and coordinator throughout the entire research