Turkish Sign Language

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Turkish Sign Language
Türk İşaret Dili
Native to Turkey, Northern Cyprus
Native speakers (unknown)
Language family
Unknown; possibly from Ottoman Sign Language
Language codes
ISO 639-3 tsm

Turkish Sign Language (Turkish: Türk İşaret Dili, TİD) is the language used by the deaf community in Turkey. As with other sign languages, TİD has a unique grammar that is different from the oral languages used in the region.

TİD uses a two-handed manual alphabet which is very different from the two-handed alphabets used in the BANZSL sign languages.

Contents

Status [edit]

There is little published information on Turkish Sign Language.

Signing communities [edit]

According to the Turkish Statistical Institute, there are a total of 89,000 (54,000 male 35,000 female) persons with hearing impairment and 55,000 (35,000 male, 21,000 female) persons with speaking disability living in Turkey, based on 2000 census data.[1]

History [edit]

TİD is dissimilar from European sign languages. There was a court sign language of the Ottoman Empire, which reached its height in the 16th century and 17th centuries and lasted at least until the early 20th.[2] (See Ottoman Sign Language.) However, there is no record of the signs themselves and no evidence the language was ancestral to modern Turkish Sign Language.[3]

Deaf schools were established in 1902, and until 1953 used TİD alongside the Turkish spoken and written language in education.[4] After 1953, Turkey has adopted an oralist approach to deaf education.

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu, Nüfus, Konut ve Demografi Verileri 2000
  2. ^ Miles, M. (2000). Signing in the Seraglio: Mutes, dwarfs and gestures at the Ottoman Court 1500-1700, Disability & Society, Vol. 15, No. 1, 115-134
  3. ^ Turkish Sign Language (TİD) General Info, Dr. Aslı Özyürek, Koç University website, accessed 2011-10-06
  4. ^ Deringil, S. (2002). İktidarın Sembolleri ve İdeoloji: II. Abdülhamid Dönemi (1876–1909), YKY, İstanbul, 249.

External links [edit]