Ka'apor Sign Language

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Ka'apor Sign Language
Urubu(–Ka'apor) Sign Language
Native toBrazil
RegionMaranhão
EthnicityKa'apor
Native speakers
unknown: 7 monolingual deaf cited (1968)[1]
about 500 hearing signers
Language codes
ISO 639-3uks
Glottologurub1243
ELPUrubú-Kaapor Sign Language

Ka'apor Sign Language (also known as Urubu Sign Language or Urubu–Ka'apor Sign Language, although these are pejorative[2]) is a village sign language used by the small community of Ka'apor people in the Brazilian state of Maranhão. Linguist Jim Kakumasu observed in 1968 that the number of deaf people in the community was 7 out of a population of about 500.[3][4] This relatively high ratio of deafness (1 in 75) led to both hearing and deaf members of the community using the language, and most hearing children grow up bilingual in the spoken and signed languages. The current state of the language is unknown. Other Indigenous tribes in the region have also been reported to use sign languages, and to communicate between themselves using sign language pidgins.[citation needed]

Notable features of Ka'apor Sign Language are its

world view of the past as something visible, and the future as unknowable.[5]

Kakumasu noted several features which sign language linguists today recognise as common to other sign languages, such as the use of

name signs. Conditional and imperative grammatical moods
are marked by non-manual features such as a widening of the eyes and tensing of facial muscles. Questions are marked with a question sign either before or after the clause, described as "a motion of the index finger towards the referent (addressee) with a slight wrist twist."

See also

References

  1. ^ Ka'apor Sign Language at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016) Closed access icon
  2. ^ Ethnologue 2016
  3. S2CID 144992757
    .
  4. ISBN 978-0306310812
    .
  5. ^ Kyle, J.G.; Woll, Bencie (1985). Sign language: the study of Deaf people and their language. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.

Further reading

  • Ferreiro-Brito, L.(1983). A Comparative Study of Signs for Time and Space in São Paulo and Urubu-Kaapor Sign Language, in W. Stokoe & V. Volterra (eds.), SLPR' 83. Proceedings of the 3rd. International Symposium on Sign Language Research, Rome, June 22–26, 1983, Rome & SiverSpring: CNR & Linstok Press.


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