Ottoman Sign Language, also known as Seraglio Sign Language or Harem Sign Language, was a

deaf 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 the

Ottoman court Ottoman court was the culture that evolved around the court of the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman court was held at the Topkapı Palace in Constantinople where the sultan was served by an army of pages and scholars. Some served in the Treasury and the ...

in Istanbul. Nothing is known of it directly, but it is reported that it could communicate ideas of any complexity, and that it was passed on to the young through fables, histories, and scripture. During the reign of

Suleiman the Magnificent Suleiman I ( ota, سليمان اول, Süleyman-ı Evvel; tr, I. Süleyman; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the West and Suleiman the Lawgiver ( ota, قانونى سلطان سليمان, Ḳ ...

, two deaf brothers were brought to the court. During this time, keeping disabled people at royal courts as oddities or pets was a fairly common practice (see court dwarf). These brothers were originally brought to court as such. They knew a sign language, likely a

home sign Home sign (or kitchen sign) is a gestural communication system, often invented spontaneously by a deaf child who lacks accessible linguistic input. Home sign systems often arise in families where a deaf child is raised by hearing parents and is iso ...

of their own invention. Out of this, the practice was born. In 16th and 17th centuries,

deaf Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...

pages, doormen, executioners, and companions of the sultan were valued for their ability to communicate silently, for their inability to overhear sensitive information at secret negotiations, and for the difficulty outsiders had in communicating with them or bribing them. At court, silence was at a premium, and several sultans preferred that sign language be used in their presence; they were able to jest with them in a way that would be inappropriately familiar in Turkish.

Osman II Osman II ( ota, عثمان ثانى ''‘Osmān-i sānī''; tr, II. Osman; 3 November 1604 – 20 May 1622), also known as Osman the Young ( tr, Genç Osman), was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 26 February 1618 until his regicide on 20 May 162 ...

(r. 1618–1622) was perhaps the first sultan to learn to sign, and ordered many of the hearing of his court to follow his lead. At their height, there may have been over a hundred deaf courtiers at any one time; it was considered undignified for the sultan to address his subjects orally, and also unseemly for those before him either to speak aloud, disturbing him, or to whisper secretly. It is not known whether Ottoman Sign Language was ancestral to modern

Turkish Sign Language Turkish Sign Language ( tr, 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-ha ...

, as no signs were recorded.''Turkish Sign Language (TİD) General Info''
, Dr.

Aslı Özyürek Aslı Özyürek is a linguist, cognitive scientist and psychologist. She is professor at the Center for Language Sciences and the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University Nijmegen, and incoming Director of the Mu ...

, Koç University website, accessed 2011-10-06 Ralamb-94.jpg, Ottoman Mute (dilsiz) Ralamb-35.jpg, Ottoman "Mute" (Dilsiz)

References

External links

*M. Miles, 2000
Signing in the Seraglio: mutes, dwarfs and jestures at the Ottoman Court 1500–1700
Reprinted from "Disability and Society" *M. Miles, 2000

*Kristina Richardson, ttps://muse.jhu.edu/article/648902 "New Evidence for Early Modern Ottoman Arabic and Turkish Sign Systems" Sign Language Studies (Winter 2017) 17.2: 172–192. doi=10.1353/sls.2017.0001

Bibliography

*Nicholas Mirzoeff, 1995, "Framed: the deaf in the harem". In Terry, Jennifer, and Jacqueline Urla, ''Deviant bodies: critical perspectives on difference in science and popular culture.'' Indiana University Press, p.49–77. Sign language isolates Sign languages of Turkey {{Ottoman-stub