Subtractive Numerals in two Village Sign Languages

Mardin Sign Language (MarSL),Turkey and Alipur Sign Language (APSL), India are languages originated in small- scale rural communities with high incidence of hereditary deafness. The sign languages discussed in this poster presentation have sociolinguistic and cultural parameters that are radically different from urban sign languages. Research on such rural sign languages and their unique setting is very recent (see Zeshan & de Vos 2012). Subtractive number systems are attested though infrequent across spoken languages, but have never been documented in sign languages before. (Dikyuva & Dilsiz 2011) This unusual finding in the two sign languages in the domain of numerals considerably extends the known range of typological variation across sign language.

Alipur: Alipur is a village located near Bangaluru in southern India. It is well known as a small muslim (Shia) enclave in a predominantly Hindu-populated area. Urdu/Hindi is spoken in Alipur village. however, the local language around Alipur is Kannada. It is believed that due to the tradition of endogamous marriage patterns genetic deafness has existed for several generations. Currently there are 150 deaf people in the village. The local people believe that deafness has existed for at least 10 generations. APSL has only recently been discovered and research is only just beginning

(see Panda 2010, 2012, Dikyuva, Escobedo Delagado, Panda and Zeshan 2012)

Mardin:MarSL evolved in Mardin, a small town in south-eastern Turkey. Genetic deafness in a single extended family with the last name ‘Dilsiz’, which means “Deaf” in Turkish, led to

the emergence of MarSL. MarSL has been used by both deaf and hearing people for generations. Around 25 years ago family members started moving out of Mardin to look for work across different cities. MarSL is still used when the extended family members get together, mainly for communication between deaf and hearing relatives, as the latter do not use Turkish Sign Language. Most

of the deaf signers from the young generation have shifted to Turkish Sign Language, and MarSL is now highly endangered as it is no longer being learned by children.

Data and MethodologyData includes a number naming task for MarSL, a bargaining game activity for APSL, and free conversation.

ELAN transcription tool was used to transcribe the data and an analysis was done based on the transcription and all findings were also confirmed later with the native users.

(1) FIVE(a) LESS TWO ‘195’

(2) TWO LESS FIFTY ‘48’

(3) TWO LESS THREE ‘28’

‘195’ can be expressed as ‘200 minus 5’ using the sign LESS. The sign ‘2’ here represents ‘200’

There is a lexical sign in APSL for ‘50’. In this example the sign ‘2’ represents the number ‘2’, not 200 as in example 1.

In example 3, the sign ‘2’ represents the number ‘2’; howev-er, the sign ‘3’ represents the number ‘30’.

Results and examples from the data

(4) TWENTY TWO-LESS ‘18’

(5) TWENTY ONE-LESS ‘19’

The subtractive number sub-system in MarSL is not obligatory but constitutes one pos sible option. Numbers from one to four can appear as subtracted number . Some signers prefer using only one and two as the subtracted numbers. This construction is possible from 26 to 29, from 36 to 39, etc., However, the largest subtracted numeral observed in the APSL data is 10.

In APSL subtractive numerals are used when the value is near a higher ‘round’ number. This allows for numbers to be expressed much more economically, as using the additive system often requires a longer sign sequence: for example:

Additive strategy: HUNDRED FIFTY TEN TEN TEN TEN FIVE ‘195’

Subtractive strategy:FIVE LESS TWO ‘195’

The APSLdata show that the usual order of signs is to start with the numeral that is being subtracted, followed by the sign LESS, followed by the larger numeral that is being subtracted from. Sometimes, signers topicalise the larger numeral, in which case it appears first _____top FIFTY, TWO LESS ‘48’ (see example 2 for pic)

Flexibly in this way are very rare cross-linguistically. A number of spoken languages have subtractive single-digit numerals (e.g. Hurford 1975; Greenberg 1978). For instance, in Athapascan languages, ‘9’ is regularly expressed as ‘(10) minus 1’ (Hymes 1955). However, the subtractive sub-system is productive in Alipur Sign Language, and that makes is highly unusual. The choice of sign order seems to depend on the context of the utterance, but this has not been investigated in detail.

Sibaji Panda & Hasan Dikyuva

APSL Examples

MarSL Examples

As seen in the exam-ples, a similar strat-egy is used in MarSL for subtracted num-bers from one to four to express the near-est four numbers from a ‘round’ number. eg. 36,37,38,39 and so forth.

References:

Dikyuva, H., Escobedo Delgado, E., Panda, S. and Zeshan, U. (2012) Working with village sign language communities – Deaf classrooms and linguistic heritage. In: Ze-shan, U. & De Vos, C. (eds.) Village Sign Languages – Linguistic and anthropological insights. Sign Language Typology Series No. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton & Ni-jmegen: Ishara Press.

Dikyuva, Hasan & Hasret Dilsiz (2011) Endangered Languages Documentation Programme: Mardin Sign Language in Turkey. Paper presented at SIGN5 conference, Gazi University, Ankara, 21-23 October 2011

Greenberg, Joseph H. 1978. Generalizations about numeral systems. In: Joseph H.Greenberg (ed.): Universals of Human Language, Volume 3. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, pp 249–297.

Hurford, James R. (1975) The Linguistic Theory of Numerals. London: Cambridge University Press.

Hymes, Virginia Dosch. (1955) Athapascan numeral systems. International Journal of American Linguistics 21(1): 6-45.Panda, S (2012) Alipur Sign Language- A sociolinguistic and cultural profile In: Zeshan, U. & De Vos, C. (eds.) Village Sign Languages – Linguistic and anthropological insights. Sign Language Typology Series No. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton & Nijmegen: Ishara Press.

Panda S (2010) The number system in Alipur Village Sign Language, Presentation at Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research (TISLR 10), Purdue University, United States of America.

Panda, S (2012) Alipur Sign Language- A sociolinguistic and cultural profile In: Zeshan, U. & De Vos, C. (eds.) Village Sign Languages – Linguistic and anthropological insights. Sign Language Typology Series No. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton & Nijmegen: Ishara Press.

Acknowledgements:We express our sincere thanks to the organisations listed to the left as well as to the Direc-tor of iSLanDS Institute at the University of Central Lancashire for the constant financial and academic support. In addition, we would like to thank the consultants who have worked with us for several years and provided valuable support to make this research successful. Without their committed sup-port we would not have been able to complete this piece of research.