Saudi Sign Language is the
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
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries by area, fifth-largest country in Asia ...
. This sign language is different from the Unified Arabic Sign Language that is used by 18 Arab countries. There are 100,000 deaf people in Saudi Arabia.
Classification
Wittmann (1991)
[ Wittmann, Henri (1991). "Classification linguistique des langues signées non vocalement." Revue québécoise de linguistique théorique et appliquée 10:1.215–8]
/ref> posits that SSL is a language isolate (a 'prototype' sign language), though one developed through stimulus diffusion from an existing sign language.
References
Further reading
* Meir, Irit & Sandler, Wendy. (2007) A Language in Space: The Story of Israel Sign Language. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
{{Portal, Saudi Arabia
Sign language isolates
Languages of Saudi Arabia
Arab sign languages