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Nepalese Sign Language or Nepali Sign Language is the main
sign language Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign l ...
of
Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
. It is a partially standardized language based informally on the variety used in
Kathmandu , pushpin_map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#Asia , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Bagmati Provi ...
, with some input from varieties from
Pokhara Pokhara ( ne, पोखरा, ) is a metropolitan city in Nepal, which serves as the capital of Gandaki Province. It is the second most populous city of Nepal after Kathmandu, with 518,452 inhabitants living in 101,669 households in 2021. It ...
and elsewhere. As an indigenous sign language, it is not related to oral
Nepali Nepali or Nepalese may refer to : Concerning Nepal * Anything of, from, or related to Nepal * Nepali people, citizens of Nepal * Nepali language, an Indo-Aryan language found in Nepal, the current official national language and a language spoken ...
. The Nepali Constitution of 2015 specifically mentions the right to have education in Sign Language for the deaf. Likewise, the newly passed Disability Rights Act of 2072 BS (2017 CE) defined language to include "spoken and sign languages and other forms of speechless language." in practice it is recognized by the
Ministry of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...
and the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, and is used (albeit in a somewhat pidginized form) in all schools for the deaf. In addition, there is legislation underway in Nepal which, in line with the UN
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is an international human rights treaty of the United Nations intended to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities. Parties to the convention are required to promote, ...
(UNCRPD) which Nepal has ratified, should give Nepalese Sign Language equal status with the oral languages of the country.


History

Nepalese Sign Language may have originated in the first school for the deaf in Nepal, established in Kathmandu in 1966 by an ENT doctor. The school was later moved to a children's home in Naxal. The aim of the school was to teach speech therapy to deaf children to have them learn to speak. Even so, deaf people who went to the school at this time recall using signs with each other during and after school. The oral policy continued until the arrival of the Patricia Ross, who tried to have total communication introduced into the school in 1985. In 1980, 13 deaf Kathmandu youths established the Deaf Welfare Association, which would later become the
Kathmandu Association of the Deaf Kathmandu Association of the Deaf (KAD) is a non-governmental organization representing the deaf of Kathmandu, and is a member association of the National Federation of the Deaf Nepal. It is the first such association to be established, and in fact ...
(KAD). This was the first association of any type established by disabled themselves and run under their own leadership and management. One of the chief goals of KAD was social reform of deaf people with an effort to promote and further develop sign language. At the time sign language was still banned in the deaf school; however, KAD worked hard to keep it alive at Deaf gatherings on weekends. Later KAD developed a one-handed
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 ...
system for
Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...
with the support of UNICEF.


Role of other sign languages in development

The first NSL dictionary was undertaken by American Patricia Ross in conjunction with KAD. Because of this connection, there may have been influence from
ASL American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is express ...
during the process. Generally speaking then, NSL developed as a natural language established by the Deaf community of Kathmandu valley, but it has been influenced by other sign languages, as well as artificial systems of sign such as
Total Communication Total communication (TC) is an approach to communicating that aims to make use of a number of modes of communication such as signed, oral, auditory, written and visual aids, depending on the particular needs and abilities of the person. History ...
or
Simultaneous Communication Simultaneous communication, SimCom, or sign supported speech (SSS) is a technique sometimes used by deaf, hard-of-hearing or hearing sign language users in which both a spoken language and a manual variant of that language (such as English and man ...
. This influence from outside due to contact (with, for example
Indo-Pakistani Sign Language Indo-Pakistani Sign Language (IPSL) is the predominant sign language in the subcontinent of South Asia, used by at least 15 million deaf signers. As with many sign languages, it is difficult to estimate numbers with any certainty, as the Cens ...
and with structural principles introduced from artificial sign systems used in the United States) was strong during its initial stage of the formation, but in different ways and to different degrees remains strong to this day (although the contact is more with
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 ...
,
American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is express ...
and various European sign languages used by visiting deaf tourists and by deaf from European funding organizations). There are also semantic overlaps with spoken Nepali (and perhaps other spoken languages).E. Mara Green (2008) “Nepali Sign Language and Nepali: Social and Linguistic Dimensions of a Case of Inter-Modal Language Contact.” In Non-Speech Modalities: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 2009 Special Session.


Sociolinguistics

Nepalese Sign Language is not used natively by the overwhelming majority of deaf people in Nepal. Since the overwhelming majority of deaf children in Nepal, as in all countries, are born into hearing families without a single signing member, Nepalese Sign Language is primarily learned first at schools for the deaf. However, these schools are few in number, and not readily accessible to most, and so most deaf Nepalese have no opportunity to acquire Nepalese Sign Language under normal circumstances. While the vast majority of non-hearing Nepalese do not have the opportunity to acquire NSL, those who are a part of the country's active Deaf communities are often well-connected to a wide international network of signers through formal relationships with foreign Deaf organizations and personal relationships with foreign signers. Researchers have discussed the homesign systems generated by Deaf Nepalese in the absence of or in addition to NSL, which are one source of linguistic variation in the language, and the potential impact of late exposure to NSL on signing practice. Scholars have also noted that first exposure to signing practice often takes place in schools for the deaf, where classes are taught primarily by hearing teachers who use
Signed Nepali Signed Nepali or Sign-Supported Nepali, is a means of communication often used by (nominally) signing hearing individuals in their interactions with signing deaf, or by deaf persons who for whatever reason acquired Nepali as their mother tongue and ...
, which can become another source of variation in Deaf Nepalese's signing repertoire.E. Mara Green (2003) Hands That Speak, BA Thesis, Amherst College


Role of the Nepali Manual Alphabet

As mentioned above, a one-handed fingerspelling system for
devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...
, the Nepali manual alphabet, was developed by KAD with the support of UNICEF. Although the idea behind this alphabet may have been motivated by foreign fingerspelling alphabets (especially
American manual alphabet The American Manual Alphabet (AMA) is a manual alphabet that augments the vocabulary of American Sign Language. Letters and digits The letters and digits are signed as follows. In informal contexts, the handshapes are not made as distinctly as the ...
and the International manual alphabet), in fact only a few of the forms of the letters can be said to derive directly from those foreign alphabets (i.e. अ from “a”, ब from “b”, म from “m”, and र from “r”). The Nepali Manual Alphabet is used not for NSL per se, but for
code switching In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Code-switching is different from plurilingualism ...
into Nepali (i.e. when a signer spells out a personal or place name, or a Nepali word). The importance of the forms of this alphabet are, however, not restricted to this function. Indeed,
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 ...
handshape In sign languages, handshape, or dez, refers to the distinctive configurations that the hands take as they are used to form words. In Stokoe terminology it is known as the , an abbreviation of ''designator''. Handshape is one of five components o ...
s have been widely used in development of new signs, through a process perhaps borrowed from America's various systems of Signed English, whereby the initial letter of the Nepali word is incorporated into the NSL, thus creating so-called " initialized signs". Perhaps more than anything else, it is this system of initialized signs which makes the lexicon of NSL structurally different from the lexicon of
Indo-Pakistani Sign Language Indo-Pakistani Sign Language (IPSL) is the predominant sign language in the subcontinent of South Asia, used by at least 15 million deaf signers. As with many sign languages, it is difficult to estimate numbers with any certainty, as the Cens ...
.MW Morgan (2012). "Through and Beyond the Lexicon: A Semiotic Look at Nepal Sign Language Affiliation." Paper given at Himalayan Languages Symposium, Varanasi, India on 11 September 2012.


Classification

The classification of Nepalese Sign Language is currently under dispute. Older work has suggested that Nepalese Sign Language is not related to other sign languages. Wittman posits that NSL is a language isolate (a 'prototype' sign language), though one developed through
Trans-cultural diffusion In cultural anthropology and cultural geography, cultural diffusion, as conceptualized by Leo Frobenius in his 1897/98 publication ''Der westafrikanische Kulturkreis'', is the spread of cultural items—such as ideas, styles, religions, technolo ...
from an existing sign language, likely
Indo-Pakistani Sign Language Indo-Pakistani Sign Language (IPSL) is the predominant sign language in the subcontinent of South Asia, used by at least 15 million deaf signers. As with many sign languages, it is difficult to estimate numbers with any certainty, as the Cens ...
, or the systems that underlay it.
Gallaudet University Gallaudet University ( ) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing. It was founded in 1864 as a grammar school for both deaf and blind children. It was the first ...
reports that NSL was "developed by the Peace Corps from local and American signs". compared sign-language varieties in India, Pakistan and Nepal and found cognate rates of 62–71%.


Lexicon

Work on documenting the lexicon of Nepalese Sign Language started in the mid-1980s. The first work collecting signs in Nepal that we know of was started in 1985. Patricia Ross, an American
Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F ...
volunteer, was a pioneer in sign language research in Nepal. However, her work with Kathmandu Association of the Deaf (KAD) was to collect already existing signs, not creating new signs. She wrote "The initial stumbling block in initiating
total communication Total communication (TC) is an approach to communicating that aims to make use of a number of modes of communication such as signed, oral, auditory, written and visual aids, depending on the particular needs and abilities of the person. History ...
in Nepal was the lack of any recorded sign language. Many people did not know that there was a fully developed system of Nepalese signs. Despite the fact that sign was not used in the schools, the deaf people, out of their own need to communicate, had developed an intricate system of signs". Regarding the process of collecting signs, Ross further stated: "I would write down words and the students would discuss and argue about what the proper sign was. Slowly and patiently the students taught me their signs, their language." Ross's work collecting NSL signs eventually lead to the publication of the first Nepalese Sign Language dictionary. Subsequently, the National Deaf Federation Nepal published a much more extensive dictionary,K. Acharya & D. Sharma (2003). Nepali Sign Language Dictionary. Nepal National Federation of the Deaf & Hard of Hearing (NFDH). Kathmandu. Quality Printers and continues to work on both documenting and supplementing the Nepalese Sign language lexicon.


Phonology

Despite the incongruity of applying the term
phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
to a
sign language Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign l ...
, like other sign languages Nepalese Sign Language also has a sub-morphemic level of structuring which is analogous (to a certain degree at least) to phonology in
spoken language A spoken language is a language produced by articulate sounds or (depending on one's definition) manual gestures, as opposed to a written language. An oral language or vocal language is a language produced with the vocal tract in contrast with a si ...
s. As such, the standard sign language model of phonology (first developed by
William Stokoe William C. Stokoe Jr. ( ; July 21, 1919 – April 4, 2000) was an American linguist and a long-time professor at Gallaudet University. His research on American Sign Language (ASL) revolutionized the understanding of ASL in the United States and s ...
for
American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is express ...
) can be applied to Nepalese Sign Language as well, according to which signs are analyzable according to five
parameter A parameter (), generally, is any characteristic that can help in defining or classifying a particular system (meaning an event, project, object, situation, etc.). That is, a parameter is an element of a system that is useful, or critical, when ...
s: #
Handshape In sign languages, handshape, or dez, refers to the distinctive configurations that the hands take as they are used to form words. In Stokoe terminology it is known as the , an abbreviation of ''designator''. Handshape is one of five components o ...
(or Dez in Stokoe's original terminology) #
Orientation Orientation may refer to: Positioning in physical space * Map orientation, the relationship between directions on a map and compass directions * Orientation (housing), the position of a building with respect to the sun, a concept in building de ...
#
Location In geography, location or place are used to denote a region (point, line, or area) on Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term ''location'' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than ''place'', the latter often indicating an entity with an ...
(or Tab in Stokoe's original terminology) #
Movement Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...
(or Sig in Stokoe's original terminology) #
Expression Expression may refer to: Linguistics * Expression (linguistics), a word, phrase, or sentence * Fixed expression, a form of words with a specific meaning * Idiom, a type of fixed expression * Metaphorical expression, a particular word, phrase, ...
(which in fact can be interpreted broadly to include all non-manual elements of a sign) Although linguistic research on Nepalese Sign Language is still in its infancy, and we do not have a complete list of for any of these parameters we can safely state that: # The set of
handshape In sign languages, handshape, or dez, refers to the distinctive configurations that the hands take as they are used to form words. In Stokoe terminology it is known as the , an abbreviation of ''designator''. Handshape is one of five components o ...
s for NSL includes not only those basic
unmarked In linguistics and social sciences, markedness is the state of standing out as nontypical or divergent as opposed to regular or common. In a marked–unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one. The dominant defau ...
handshapes which form the core of most sign languages, but also, due to the widespread application of initialized signs, also a number of highly
marked In linguistics and social sciences, markedness is the state of standing out as nontypical or divergent as opposed to regular or common. In a marked–unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one. The dominant defau ...
handshapes. These highly marked handshapes can, in their origin at least, be considered to be uniformly indexic (in the Peircean
semiotic Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes (semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something, ...
sense), in that they always and without exception have a meaning correlate with a Nepali word which begins with the letter indicated by the handshape in the Nepali manual alphabet. Thus, for example, the marked handshape श /sha/ occurs in words such as CITY (शहर /shahar/), EDUCATION (शिक्षा /shiksha:/), PEACE (शान्ति /sha:nti/), ENEMY (शत्रु /shatru/), TECHNIQUE/SKILL (शिल्प /shilpa/), SHIVA (शिव /shiva/, BRANCH (शाखा /sha:kha:), SHERPA (शेर्पा /sherpa:/, all of them associated with a Nepali word beginning with the letter श /sha/ (albeit in some cases now frequently spelled with स /sa/ (e.g., सहर in place of शहर for 'city')). In addition there are handshapes such as those used in the sign for POTATO (आलु) that are neither unmarked nor based on initialization. # The set of
location In geography, location or place are used to denote a region (point, line, or area) on Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term ''location'' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than ''place'', the latter often indicating an entity with an ...
s for NSL is generally restricted to the hemisphere bounded by the comfortable extension of both arms rotated at the sides of the body and also in front of the body, but may also extend beyond this. #
Expression Expression may refer to: Linguistics * Expression (linguistics), a word, phrase, or sentence * Fixed expression, a form of words with a specific meaning * Idiom, a type of fixed expression * Metaphorical expression, a particular word, phrase, ...
alone (i.e. unaccompanied by any of the other
parameter A parameter (), generally, is any characteristic that can help in defining or classifying a particular system (meaning an event, project, object, situation, etc.). That is, a parameter is an element of a system that is useful, or critical, when ...
s nor any manual sign) can occasionally constitute a NSL sign. One of the problems of phonemic analysis on NSL, which is also manifest in other sign languages, is the absence of extensive lists of
minimal pair In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate th ...
s such as are typically found for all
spoken language A spoken language is a language produced by articulate sounds or (depending on one's definition) manual gestures, as opposed to a written language. An oral language or vocal language is a language produced with the vocal tract in contrast with a si ...
s. While such pairs are impossible to find for all possible
minimal pair In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate th ...
s, a sufficient number of such pairs can be produced to justify the method. Such pairs are especially easy to find in cases of initialized signs; thus, for example, while the index finger with tip indexic the back of the opposite wrist indicates the generic term TIME (Nepali: समय /samaj/), a म /ma/ handshape indicates OPPORTUNITY (Nepali: मौका /mauka:/), a फ /pʰa/
handshape In sign languages, handshape, or dez, refers to the distinctive configurations that the hands take as they are used to form words. In Stokoe terminology it is known as the , an abbreviation of ''designator''. Handshape is one of five components o ...
indicates FREETIME (Nepali: फुर्सत /pʰursat/), etc.


Morphosyntax

Nepalese Sign Language shares a number of features with most sign languages studied to date:


Morphology

Morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...
in NSL, as in languages in general, comes in two types:
derivational morphology Morphological derivation, in linguistics, is the process of forming a new word from an existing word, often by adding a prefix or suffix, such as For example, ''unhappy'' and ''happiness'' derive from the root word ''happy.'' It is differentiat ...
and grammatical or
inflectional morphology In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and def ...
. Incorporation is a feature which blurs the border between
phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
and
morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...
. There exists incorporation of
handshape In sign languages, handshape, or dez, refers to the distinctive configurations that the hands take as they are used to form words. In Stokoe terminology it is known as the , an abbreviation of ''designator''. Handshape is one of five components o ...
s from the Nepali manual alphabet into lexical items as we saw above the sections above on manual alphabet and lexicon. Incorporation also occurs in NSL verbs, in what are often referred to as " classifier predicates". The pattern is ergative-accusative, with subjects of
intransitive verb In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...
s (e.g. ONE-PERSON in "One person passed by in front of me")), and
object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ai ...
s of
transitive verb A transitive verb is a verb that accepts one or more objects, for example, 'cleaned' in ''Donald cleaned the window''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not have objects, for example, 'panicked' in ''Donald panicked''. Transitiv ...
s (e.g. "thick classifier" in "I ate a buff burger").
William Stokoe William C. Stokoe Jr. ( ; July 21, 1919 – April 4, 2000) was an American linguist and a long-time professor at Gallaudet University. His research on American Sign Language (ASL) revolutionized the understanding of ASL in the United States and s ...
proposed a theoretical revision called " semantic phonology". Under such a proposal, the sign for TEA चिया /chiya:/ could be seen as a complete predicate, with the "classifier"—in this case the Nepali manual alphabet
handshape In sign languages, handshape, or dez, refers to the distinctive configurations that the hands take as they are used to form words. In Stokoe terminology it is known as the , an abbreviation of ''designator''. Handshape is one of five components o ...
च /cha/ standing for TEA चिया /chiya:/ -- being incorporated into a "verb" DRINK. Frequently, and especially at the level of the lexicon, instruments are also incorporated. Many verbs also agree in
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of propert ...
(and
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
) with the subject and
object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ai ...
(often the
indirect object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
, as e.g. "He stared at me" with the sign LOOK-AT directed from
third person Third person, or third-person, may refer to: * Third person (grammar), a point of view (in English, ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', and ''they'') ** Illeism, the act of referring to oneself in the third person * Third-person narrative, a perspective in ...
to first person). However, there is no grammatical or semantic criteria, other than it being transitive which can determine whether a verb will manifest agreement or not. To a limited extend the phonological feature of being "body anchored" (that is, having contact with the body at some point during execution) can limit agreement (e.g. a sign which starts with a body contact will be less free to show subject agreement, and a sign which ends with body contact will be less free to show object agreement). Thus, in sentences of the type "I gave a book to you" we may have a single
sign A sign is an object, quality, event, or entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. A natural sign bears a causal relation to its object—for instance, thunder is a sign of storm, or me ...
GIVE,
inflected In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and def ...
for
agreement Agreement may refer to: Agreements between people and organizations * Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law * Trade agreement, between countries * Consensus, a decision-making process * Contract, enforceable in a court of law ** Meeting of ...
(motion of the verb begins from the signer and moves towards the recipient) and the
handshape In sign languages, handshape, or dez, refers to the distinctive configurations that the hands take as they are used to form words. In Stokoe terminology it is known as the , an abbreviation of ''designator''. Handshape is one of five components o ...
of the verb GIVE is modified to incorporate a "thick classifier" handling classifier
handshape In sign languages, handshape, or dez, refers to the distinctive configurations that the hands take as they are used to form words. In Stokoe terminology it is known as the , an abbreviation of ''designator''. Handshape is one of five components o ...
(object the size and shape of a BOOK).


Syntax

Typically, in discourse, sentences are short, and verbal
arguments An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
( actants) are often left to context (leading to average clause length of less than 2 signs). In addition, NSL (like other sign languages), tends to be topicalizing; that is, the topic is fronted (moved to the front of the clause). Given these two facts, it is hard to a "Basic Word Order" for NSL; nevertheless, in those instances where both
agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...
and patient are lexicalized and where there is no
topicalization Topicalization is a mechanism of syntax that establishes an expression as the sentence or clause topic by having it appear at the front of the sentence or clause (as opposed to in a canonical position further to the right). This involves a phrasal ...
(e.g. in artificially elicited sentences in isolation), the word order tends to be SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) - just like
Nepali Nepali or Nepalese may refer to : Concerning Nepal * Anything of, from, or related to Nepal * Nepali people, citizens of Nepal * Nepali language, an Indo-Aryan language found in Nepal, the current official national language and a language spoken ...
and most members of the South Asian Sprachbund.


Discourse features

Discourse in Nepalese Sign Language shares many features with discourse in other sign language: # Discourse tends to be firmly "anchored" deictically, both within the space-time of the speech situation and also within the space-time of the narrative situation. As space in front of and around the signer can both represent real world space, but also the narrative world space, in addition to being used grammatically, index points and other spatial references are frequent, and may shift between the various frames. # Clause length in discourse tends to be rather short, so that, for example, clauses with transitive verbs will very rarely have both agent and patient expressed lexically. # What would in spoken discourse be called "co-speech gesture" in fact is fully integrated into the communicative semiotic of sign language discourse. The same is true of action embodiment (mimed action). # As the signer has at their disposal several multiple articulators (i.e. not only both hands, which may be used as independent articulators, but also their own body (in the form of embodied action)), it is possible for extremely complex discourse events to be expressed simultaneously, whereas in spoke language they would have to be expressed by a long chain of sequential lexical and grammatical morphemes.


Other indigenous sign languages of Nepal

In addition to the national sign language, several local indigenous 'village' sign languages have been identified. The following “village sign languages” have been identified:
Jhankot Sign Language Jhankot Sign Language is a village sign language of the village of Jhankot in western Nepal. The Deaf make up 10% of the village, and Jhankot SL is widely known by the hearing community. See also *Jumla Sign Language *Ghandruk Sign Language ...
,
Jumla Sign Language Jumla Sign Language is a village sign language of the town of Jumla in western Nepal. There is a Nepalese Sign Language school in Jumla, and that the students come from a 1–2-day walk away and do not speak Jumla Sign Language. See also * Jh ...
,
Ghandruk Sign Language Ghandruk Sign Language ( ne, घान्द्रुक सांकेतिक भाषा) is a village sign language of the village of Ghandruk in central Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Repu ...
and
Maunabudhuk–Bodhe Sign Language Maunabudhuk–Bodhe Sign Language is a village sign language of the neighboring villages of Maunabudhuk and Bodhe in far eastern Nepal.Elizabeth Mara Green (2014) ''The nature of signs: Nepal's deaf society, local sign, and the production o ...
. Although insufficiently studied, they each appear to be mutually unintelligible to native signers of Nepalese Sign language, and thus qualify as separate sign languages.


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Deafway-UK Nepal program

SDR Swedish Deaf Association
{{sign language navigation Sign language isolates Languages of Nepal Sign languages of Nepal