Mongolian Sign Language

Mongolian Sign Language (Mongolian: Монгол дохионы хэл, Mongol dokhiony khel) is a sign language used in Mongolia. Ethnologue estimates that there were between 10,000 and 147,000 deaf people in Mongolia as of 1998; however, it is not known how many of those are users of MSL.^[2] Mongolian Sign Language is widely spoken in areas where Mongolian diaspora have immigrated. Such locations involve California, Houston, and Charleston. Dr. Phillip McGrevis, a member of the American Center of Mongolian Studies, noted that Mongolian Sign Language is mutually intelligible with Russian Sign Language. The large shared vocabulary could be a byproduct of the Kapusta's presence in Mongolia prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Linda Ball, a Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia, is believed to have created the first dictionary of MSL in 1995.^[3] In 2007, another MSL dictionary with 3,000 entries was published by Mongolia's Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science with assistance from UNESCO.^[4]

Notes

Sources

• "Now That's a Good Sign!" (PDF), Peace Corps Times (1), January 1995
• Torigoe, Takashi (April 2008), "モンゴルのろう教育・現地調査報告/Deaf education in Mongolia: Report of fieldwork", 『途上国における特別支援教育開発の国際協力に関する研究』 (PDF), 科学研究費補助金研究成果報告書 (17252010), pp. 285–305

Further reading

• U. Badnaa; Linda Ball (1995), Монголын Дохионы Хелний Толь, OCLC 37604349
• Baljinnyam, N. 2007. A study of the developing Mongolian Sign Language. Master’s thesis, Mongolian State University of Education, Ulaanbaatar.
• Geer, L. (2011). Kinship in Mongolian Sign Language. Sign Language Studies 11(4):594–605.
• Geer, Leah. 2012. Sources of Variation in Mongolian Sign Language. Texas Linguistics Forum 55:33-42. (Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Symposium About Language and Society—Austin) Online version

External links

• Homepage of Yümjiriin Mönkh-Amgalan at the National University of Mongolia, with a listing of his Mongolian-language papers about MSL