Documentation and description of Langue des Signes Malienne

Documentation and description of Langue des Signes Malienne. ELDP/SOAS (2007-2010); project leader: Victoria Nyst

Project data

Full title   Documentation and description of Langue des Signes Malienne
Duration      2007-2010
Nature   ELDP/SOAS
Project leader   Victoria Nyst


Malinese Sign Language / Langue des Signes Malienne (LaSiMa)

English version
Malinese Sign Language (LaSiMa) is the local sign language of Mali. It has developed spontaneously in the streets of urban centres in Mali, outside the context of Deaf education. The cradle of LaSiMa seem to be the 'grins'; tea circles where Deaf men gather after work to chat and relax. Up till today, the LaSiMa sigining community consists predominantly of men.

The Malinese Sign Language has become marginalized as the Deaf community is shifting to American Sign Language, which has been used in Deaf education for about fifteen years now.

A three year poject has been initiated to describe and document this endangered sign language. Initiator of the project is Dr Victoria Nyst (LUCL and the Department of Languages and Cultures of Africa). The project is financially supported by the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project.


Version française
La Langue des Signes Malienne (LaSiMa) est la langue des signes locale du Mali, Afrique de l’Ouest. Elle s'est évoluée spontanément dans les centres urbains du Mali, en dehors du contexte éducatif. L’origine de cette langue se trouve dans les 'grins' ou lieux des palabres, où les hommes se rencontrent après le travail pour causer et prendre du thé. A présent, les hommes qui maîtrisent bien la LaSiMa sont plus nombreux que les femmes qui la maîtrisent.

Depuis une quinzaine d´années, la Langue des Signes Américaine (ASL) est utililsée dans l’éducation des Sourds au Mali. En conséquence, cette langue remplace de plus en plus la Langue des Signes Malienne dans la communauté Sourde Malienne.

Un projet de trois ans a été mis en place pour décrire et documenter cette langue en danger. La responsable du projet est dr. Victoria Nyst (LUCL et le département des Langues et Cultures de l'Afrique). Le projet est financé par le Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project.

Watch a sample of LaSiMa / Regardez un extrait vidéo en LaSiMa (YouTube)

Description and documentation

The aim of the project is fourfold:

1. Creation of a representative corpus of LaSiMa
This corpus will consist of spontaneous and elicited material. The signers contributing to the text collection will be selected such that they reflect the user community in a representative way, i.e. in gender balance and age. Part of the discourse will be glossed and translated, using the ELAN software. The corpus will be stored in HRELP's Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR)

2. Creation of a lexical database
The database will consist of lexical LaSiMa items with their semantic equivalent in French. The format used is LEXUS, developed at the MPI in Nijmegen. LEXUS allows lexical items to be linked to example phrases in ELAN transcriptions.

3. A grammatical sketch of selected aspects
This sketch is to describe selected features of LSM, which are expected to be of much interest for sign language typology. Prior research on another West African sign language revealed a cross-sign-linguistically unusual absence of a conventional system of entity classifier predicates in space. Therefore, the analysis will focus on highly iconic structures and the use of space. The project will also report and reflect on the methodologies used in it.

4. Awareness and empowerment
The findings of the project are relevant to the academic community, but also to the user community and the larger Malian public more generally. Projet LaSiMa organizes workshops, presentations and informs the media to raise awareness about the linguistic status of LaSiMa. Thus, the project hopes to contribute to the empowerment of the language and its users.

The researcher

Victoria Nyst is a sign linguist, specialized in African sign languages. In 2007, she defended her PhD thesis on Adamorobe Sign Language, used in a village with a high incidence of deafness in Ghana. She manages the Projet LaSiMa and takes care of the processing and analysis of the data.

Victoria Nyst est linguiste, spécialisée en langues des signes africaines. En 2007, elle a soutenu sa thèse de doctorat sur la Langue des Signes Adamorobe, utilisée dans un petit village au Ghana. Elle est responsable de la coordination du Projet LaSiMa et de l'analyse des données.


Events

LUCL Office
Last Modified: 04-04-2011