Ban Khor Sign Language
Encyclopedia
Ban Khor Sign Language is a sign language
used by about 1,000 people of a rice-farming community in the villages of Ban Khor and Plaa Pag in a remote area of Isan
(northeastern Thailand
). Ban Khor proper and Plaa Pag are dialects, with some 80% of signs in common. It developed about 60–80 years ago due to a high number of deaf people. Preliminary observation has tentatively suggested it may be a language isolate
, independent of the other indigenous sign languages of Thailand such as Old Bangkok Sign Language and the national Thai Sign Language
. Two other reported village sign languages of the BKSL area, Huay Hai Sign Language and Na Sai Sign Language, have not been compared with BKSL, and it is not known if they are distinct languages.
Thai Sign Language is increasingly exerting an influence on BKSL.
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
used by about 1,000 people of a rice-farming community in the villages of Ban Khor and Plaa Pag in a remote area of Isan
Isan
Isan is the northeastern region of Thailand. It is located on the Khorat Plateau, bordered by the Mekong River to the north and east, by Cambodia to the southeast and the Prachinburi mountains south of Nakhon Ratchasima...
(northeastern Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
). Ban Khor proper and Plaa Pag are dialects, with some 80% of signs in common. It developed about 60–80 years ago due to a high number of deaf people. Preliminary observation has tentatively suggested it may be a language isolate
Language isolate
A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
, independent of the other indigenous sign languages of Thailand such as Old Bangkok Sign Language and the national Thai Sign Language
Thai Sign Language
Thai Sign Language or Modern Standard Thai Sign Language , is the national sign language of Thailand's Deaf community and is used in most parts of the country by the 20% of the estimated 56,000 pre-linguistically deaf people who go to school...
. Two other reported village sign languages of the BKSL area, Huay Hai Sign Language and Na Sai Sign Language, have not been compared with BKSL, and it is not known if they are distinct languages.
Thai Sign Language is increasingly exerting an influence on BKSL.
External links
- Report on sign languages in Thailand http://www.sil.org/silesr/abstract.asp?ref=2009-016