| Kaʼapor Sign Language | |
|---|---|
| Urubu(–Kaʼapor) Sign Language | |
| Native to | Brazil |
| Region | Maranhão |
| Ethnicity | Kaʼapor |
Native speakers | unknown: 7 monolingual deaf cited (1968)[1] about 500 hearing signers |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | uks |
| Glottolog | urub1243 |
| ELP | Urubú-Kaapor Sign Language |
Kaʼapor Sign Language (also known asUrubu Sign Language orUrubu–Kaʼapor Sign Language, although these are pejorative;[2]Portuguese:Língua de sinais caapor brasileira) is avillage sign language used by the small community ofKaʼapor people in the Brazilian state ofMaranhão.[3] Linguist Jim Kakumasu observed in 1968 that the number of deaf people in the community was 7 out of a population of about 500.[4][5] This relatively high ratio of deafness (1 in 75) led to both hearing and deaf members of the community using the language, and most hearing children grow up bilingual in the spoken and signed languages. The current state of the language is unknown. Other Indigenous tribes in the region have also been reported to use sign languages, and to communicate between themselves using sign languagepidgins.[citation needed]
Notable features of Kaʼapor Sign Language are itsobject–subject–verbword order, and its locating of the past in front of the signer and the future behind, in contrast to sign languages of European origin, includingAmerican Sign Language,Auslan andNew Zealand Sign Language. This may represent aworld view of the past as something visible, and the future as unknowable.[6]
Kakumasu noted several features which sign language linguists today recognise as common to other sign languages, such as the use ofname signs. Conditional and imperativegrammatical moods are marked by non-manual features such as a widening of the eyes and tensing of facial muscles. Questions are marked with a question sign either before or after the clause, described as "a motion of the index finger towards the referent (addressee) with a slight wrist twist."
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