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Albanian Sign Language
Albanian Sign Language (AlbSL, ) is one of the deaf sign languages of Europe. It is unrelated to other sign languages of the Balkans. It is relatively young, having developed primarily since the collapse of Communism in 1990. During the communist era, deaf people did not associate with each other on a regular basis. Their communication was primarily with hearing people, and so was strongly influenced by Albanian, with extensive use of fingerspelling and initialized signs, along with some gestures borrowed from hearing people. After the collapse of communism, deaf people began to congregate and a fully-fledged sign language developed. They invented new signs to replace the former use of fingerspelling, and also came into contact with International Sign and other European sign languages, resulting in numerous loan words. The language continues to change rapidly, with innovations tending to radiate from the capital, Tirana Tirana ( , ; aln, Tirona) is the capital and largest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares land borders with Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, North Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south. Tirana is its capital and largest city, followed by Durrës, Vlorë, and Shkodër. Albania displays varied climatic, geological, hydrological, and morphological conditions, defined in an area of . It possesses significant diversity with the landscape ranging from the snow-capped mountains in the Albanian Alps as well as the Korab, Skanderbeg, Pindus and Ceraunian Mountains to the hot and sunny coasts of the Albanian Adriatic and Ionian Sea along the Mediterranean Sea. Albania has been inhabited by different civilisations over time, such as the Illyrians, Thracians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Veneti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Isolate
Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The number of language isolates is unknown. A language isolate is unrelated to any other, which makes it the only language in its own language family. It is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical (or "genetic") relationships—one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. One explanation for the existence of language isolates is that they might be the last remaining branch of a larger language family. The language possibly had relatives in the past which have since disappeared without being documented. Another explanation for language isolates is that they developed in isolation from other languages. This explanation mostly applies to sign languages that have arisen independently ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creole Language
A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. While the concept is similar to that of a mixed or hybrid language, creoles are often characterized by a tendency to systematize their inherited grammar (e.g., by eliminating irregularities or regularizing the conjugation of otherwise irregular verbs). Like any language, creoles are characterized by a consistent system of grammar, possess large stable vocabularies, and are acquired by children as their native language. These three features distinguish a creole language from a pidgin. Creolistics, or creology, is the study of creole languages and, as such, is a subfield of linguistics. Someone who engages in this study is called a creolist. The precise number of creole languages is not known, particularly as many are poorly attested or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deaf Sign Languages
There are perhaps three hundred sign languages in use around the world today. The number is not known with any confidence; new sign languages emerge frequently through creolization and '' de novo'' (and occasionally through language planning). In some countries, such as Sri Lanka and Tanzania, each school for the deaf may have a separate language, known only to its students and sometimes denied by the school; on the other hand, countries may share sign languages, although sometimes under different names (Croatian and Serbian, Indian and Pakistani). Deaf sign languages also arise outside educational institutions, especially in village communities with high levels of congenital deafness, but there are significant sign languages developed for the hearing as well, such as the speech-taboo languages used in aboriginal Australia. Scholars are doing field surveys to identify the world's sign languages. The following list is grouped into three sections : * Deaf sign languages, which are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. Comprising the westernmost peninsulas of Eurasia, it shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with both Africa and Asia. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and Asia to the east. Europe is commonly considered to be separated from Asia by the watershed of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea and the waterways of the Turkish Straits. "Europe" (pp. 68–69); "Asia" (pp. 90–91): "A commonly accepted division between Asia and Europe ... is formed by the Ural Mountains, Ural River, Caspian Sea, Caucasus Mountains, and the Black Sea wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albanian Language
Albanian ( endonym: or ) is an Indo-European language and an independent branch of that family of languages. It is spoken by the Albanians in the Balkans and by the Albanian diaspora, which is generally concentrated in the Americas, Europe and Oceania. With about 7.5 million speakers, it comprises an independent branch within the Indo-European languages and is not closely related to any other modern Indo-European language. Albanian was first attested in the 15th century and it is a descendant of one of the Paleo-Balkan languages of antiquity. For historical and geographical reasons,: "It is often thought (for obvious geographic reasons) that Albanian descends from ancient Illyrian (see above), but this cannot be ascertained as we know next to nothing about Illyrian itself." the prevailing opinion among modern historians and linguists is that the Albanian language is a descendant of a southern Illyrian dialect spoken in much the same region in classical times. Alternativ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fingerspelling
Fingerspelling (or dactylology) is the representation of the letters of a writing system, and sometimes numeral systems, using only the hands. These manual alphabets (also known as finger alphabets or hand alphabets) have often been used in deaf education and have subsequently been adopted as a distinct part of a number of sign languages. There are about forty manual alphabets around the world. Historically, manual alphabets have had a number of additional applications—including use as ciphers, as mnemonics and in silent religious settings. Forms of manual alphabets As with other forms of manual communication, fingerspelling can be comprehended visually or tactually. The simplest visual form of fingerspelling is tracing the shape of letters in the air and the simplest tactual form is tracing them on the hand. Fingerspelling can be one-handed such as in American Sign Language, French Sign Language and Irish Sign Language, or it can be two-handed such as in British Sign Language ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Sign
International Sign (IS) is a pidgin sign language which is used in a variety of different contexts, particularly at international meetings such as the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) congress, in some European Union settings, and at some UN conferences, at events such as the Deaflympics, the Miss & Mister Deaf World, and Eurovision, and informally when travelling and socialising. Linguists do not agree on what the term ''International Sign'' means precisely, and empirically derived dictionaries are lacking. Naming While the more commonly used term is International Sign, it is sometimes referred to as Gestuno, or International Sign Pidgin and International Gesture (IG). International Sign is a term used by the World Federation of the Deaf and other international organisations. History Deaf people in the Western and Middle Eastern world have gathered together using sign language for 2,000 years. When Deaf people from different sign language backgrounds get together, a con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loan Word
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because they share an etymological origin, and calques, which involve translation. Loanwords from languages with different scripts are usually transliterated (between scripts), but they are not translated. Additionally, loanwords may be adapted to phonology, phonotactics, orthography, and morphology of the target language. When a loanword is fully adapted to the rules of the target language, it is distinguished from native words of the target language only by its origin. However, often the adaptation is incomplete, so loanwords may conserve specific features distinguishing them from native words of the target language: loaned phonemes and sound combinations, partial or total conserving of the original spelling, foreign plural or case forms or indecli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tirana
Tirana ( , ; aln, Tirona) is the capital and largest city of Albania. It is located in the centre of the country, enclosed by mountains and hills with Dajti rising to the east and a slight valley to the northwest overlooking the Adriatic Sea in the distance. Due to its location at the Plain of Tirana and the close proximity to the Mediterranean Sea, the city is particularly influenced by a Mediterranean seasonal climate. It is among the wettest and sunniest cities in Europe, with 2,544 hours of sun per year. Tirana was founded as a city in 1614 by the Ottoman Albanian general Sylejman Pasha Bargjini and flourished by then around the Old Mosque and the ''türbe''. The area that today corresponds to the city's territory has been continuously inhabited since the Iron Age. It was inhabited by Illyrians, and was most likely the core of the Illyrian Kingdom of the Taulantii, which in Classical Antiquity was centred in the hinterland of Epidamnus. Following the Illyrian Wars i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Languages Of Albania
Albania is an ethnically homogeneous country, where the overwhelming majority of the population speaks Albanian, which is also the official language. It has two distinct dialects: Tosk, spoken in the south, and Gheg, spoken in the north. However, Albanians can also speak Italian, Greek, French, German, and English, amongst other languages, due to the high numbers of Albanian diaspora and Albanian communities throughout the Balkans. Although many ethnic Albanians (from within Albania and the wider Balkans and diaspora) around the world speak more than two languages and have been recognised as polyglots, Albania is the fourth highest nation in Europe in terms of the percentage of monolingual inhabitants, with 59.9% speaking only one language. Italian is widely spoken throughout Albania. Greek, the language of the Greek national minority is focused in southern Albania; however, many Albanian nationals speak the Greek language due to immigration. Nowadays, knowledge of English is g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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