Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language

Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language
لغة الإشارة لعشيرة السيد (Arabic)
Lughat il-Ishārah il-Ashīrat al-Sayyid
Native toIsrael
RegionNegev
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 639-3syy
Glottologalsa1242
ELPAl-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.

  1. ^ Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Fox, Margalit (2008). Talking Hands. New York, New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.