Ban Khor Sign Language
| Ban Khor Sign Language | |
|---|---|
| Signed in | Thailand |
| Native signers | ? (date missing) |
| Language family | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | bfk |
Ban Khor Sign Language (BKSL) is a sign language used by about 1,000 people of a rice-farming community in the villages of Ban Khor and Plaa Pag in a remote area of Isan (northeastern Thailand). Ban Khor proper and Plaa Pag are dialects, with some 80% of signs in common. It developed about 60–80 years ago due to a high number of deaf people. Preliminary observation has tentatively suggested it may be a language isolate, independent of the other indigenous sign languages of Thailand such as Old Bangkok Sign Language and the national Thai Sign Language. Two other reported village sign languages of the BKSL area, Huay Hai Sign Language and Na Sai Sign Language, have not been compared with BKSL, and it is not known if they are distinct languages.
Thai Sign Language is increasingly exerting an influence on BKSL.
[edit] References
- Nonaka, Angela M. (2004). The forgotten endangered languages: Lessons on the importance of remembering from Thailand's Ban Khor Sign Language. In: Language in Society 33:5 (2004) pp. 737–768
[edit] External links
- Report on sign languages in Thailand [1]
