While poking around on the new Endangered Languages project, I was surprised to come across what is known as "Mardin Sign Language," a form of communication developed among an extended family with a number of deaf members living in Mardin. Following the well-known pattern of language shift and of most local or family sign languages (which linguists call village sign languages if they develop along with hearing signers), most younger signers are now only passive in Mardin Sign Language, communicating actively by speaking or using the dominant/national Turkish sign language.
A quick read into village sign languages reveals some fascinating stuff, such as a village in Brazil that uses an indigenous sign language to communicate with only one deaf child, and a number of villages in which the majority of residents sign despite a relatively small number of deaf residents. Linguistics make a distinction between these kind of sign languages, which are spoken by deaf and hearing people who share a great deal of cultural context, and "deaf community sign languages," which form in situations such as schools for deaf students in which the attendees have no common language. A famous example of the latter is Nicaraguan Sign Language, developed by deaf children who were being taught spoken Spanish and lipreading at newly formed schools, of NPR fame.
Given the linguistic mix in Mardin, which draws from Turkish, Arabic and Kurdish, I would love to read more about all the gestures and utterances that this family's interactions are built upon.
EXTRA EXTRA: There seems to be very little written about this (134 hits on google and no Turkish wikipedia page, but look here and here), but apparently there existed a complex sign language of the Ottoman court spoken by the hearing and those called "mutes" alike. While I feel it is fairly well known that the Sultan employed a range of gestures for court communication, I had no idea that there was also such a complex language (related? distinct?) that could be used to recite stories and religious texts and communicate complex ideas. Its deaf users would have been valued as providing an extra layer of security and secrecy, as it would have been difficult for them to communicate with others and they would have been unable to overhear the sensitive information providing fodder for harem and palace drama. Apparently Osman II was the first fluent user and required a number of his court to learn it as well. Unfortunately, no documentation exists of this language and linguistics are unsure if this language is related to any contemporaneous or currently existing sign languages.
Have you read the book Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha's Vineyard? My dad loves it--it's from 85, but he's used it for years, I think especially in his "Experience of Illness" class (because, in Martha's Vineyard, since it was such a high proportion of the people affected, it wasn't really a medicalized problem in a many social situations, though it became medicalized later by outsiders. I think that's one of the things he points to. I've obviously never taken his class.).
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