| Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language | |
|---|---|
| لغة الإشارة لعشيرة السيد (Arabic) Lughat il-Ishārah il-Ashīrat al-Sayyid | |
| Native to | Israel |
| Region | Negev |
Native speakers | 120–150 deaf (2008)[1] Also used by many of the 3,500 hearing people of the village. Recognized as the local second language. |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | syy |
| Glottolog | alsa1242 |
| ELP | Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language |
Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL) is a village sign language used by about 150 deaf and many hearing members of the al-Sayyid Bedouin tribe in the Negev desert of southern Israel.
As deafness is so frequent (4% of the village's population is deaf, compared to 0.1% in the United States)[2] and deaf and hearing people share a language, deaf people are not stigmatised in this community and marriage between deaf and hearing people is common.
ABSL grammar developed quickly, with the signing of each generation becoming more complex than the last. Even though no evidence of phonological structure was found throughout the community, it seems to be emerging within individual families.