Yolŋu Sign Language

Yolŋu (Yolngu) or Murngin Sign Language is a ritual sign language used by the Yolngu, an Aboriginal community in the Arnhem Land region of Australia. As with other Australian Aboriginal sign languages, YSL was developed by the hearing for use when oral speech is forbidden, as during mourning or between certain family relations. (See speech taboo.) However, "YSL is not a signed version of any spoken Yolngu language... YSL also serves as a primary means of communication for a number of deaf members in Yolngu communities... YSL functions as both an alternate and primary sign language".[2] That is, it is used for communicating to the deaf, but also when communicating at a distance, when hunting, or when ceremonies require silence. It was acquired from birth by the hearing population. YSL is now considered an endangered language.[3]

Yolŋu Sign Language
Murngin Sign Language
RegionGove Peninsula, Northern Territory, Australia
EthnicityYolngu people
Signers5,000 natively bilingual (2012)[1]
Pama–Nyungan
Language codes
ISO 639-3ygs – inclusive code
Individual code:
yhs – Yan-nhaŋu Sign Language
Glottologyoln1234

See also

Citations
  1. Yolŋu Sign Language at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Yan-nhaŋu Sign Language at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Maypila, Elaine and Dany Adone. 2012. Yolngu Sign Language: A sociolinguistic profile. Sign Languages in Village Communities: Anthropological and Linguistic Insights ed. by Ulrike Zehan and Connie De Vox, pp. 401-404. Berlin: De Gruyter.
  3. Endangered language

References
  • Yolngu Sign Language project at the University of Central Lancashire
  • Kendon, Adam (1988) Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: cultural, semiotic, and communicative perspective. Cambridge University Press.
  • Warner, W. Lloyd (1937) "Murngin Sign Language", A Black Civilization. New York: Harper and Row, pp. 389–392.
  • Bauer, Anastasia (2014) "The use of signing space in a shared sign language of Australia", Sign Language Typology 5, De Gruyter Mouton & Ishara Press. Berlin & Nijmegen.


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