Sign Names in Yucatec Maya Sign Language
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| Title: | Sign Names in Yucatec Maya Sign Language |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Olivier Le Guen, Rossy Kinil Canche, Merli Collí Hau, Geli Collí Collí |
| Source: | Sign Language Studies. 2023 24(1):128-167. |
| Availability: | Gallaudet University Press. 800 Florida Avenue NE, Denison House, Washington, DC 20002-3695. Tel: 202-651-5488; Fax: 202-651-5489; Web site: http://gupress.gallaudet.edu/SLS.html |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 40 |
| Publication Date: | 2023 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Evaluative |
| Descriptors: | Sign Language, Mayan Languages, Foreign Countries, Self Concept, Language Classification, Nonverbal Communication, Language Acquisition, Cultural Influences, Skill Development, Deafness, Native Language |
| Geographic Terms: | Mexico |
| DOI: | 10.1353/sls.2023.a912332 |
| ISSN: | 0302-1475 1533-6263 |
| Abstract: | This article analyzes the construction of sign names in an emerging sign language from Mexico, the Yucatec Maya Sign Language (YMSL). Data comes from elicited interviews as well as natural interactions collected by the authors and signers from two different villages, Chicán and Nohkop. Despite YMSL being an isolate language, sign name construction displays tendencies common in other sign languages, such as being based on descriptions of people's appearance and/or behavior. YMSL sign names also exhibit less common features, such as the extensive use of generic names, names by (kinship) association, and nonmanual sign names. Crucially, name construction in YMSL seems to follow the cultural naming rules of the surrounding Yucatec Maya community. A total of ninety-seven sign names were collected in the two communities: forty-two signs in Nohkop and fifty-five in Chicán. This article explores how the cultural setting can shape the development of sign names in an emerging sign language. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2024 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1412992 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| FullText | Links: – Type: pdflink Url: https://content.ebscohost.com/cds/retrieve?content=AQICAHj0k_4E0hTGH8RJwT4gCJyBsGNe_WN95AvKlDbXJGqwxwGtMFMk0cjFhYjKzR9RKAncAAAA4zCB4AYJKoZIhvcNAQcGoIHSMIHPAgEAMIHJBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwHgYJYIZIAWUDBAEuMBEEDBr-Pi1Q51pXyD8jzQIBEICBmwkH7d0G8hBaWBBtbhIeFta2FR1xDEjANorpvHoSLVCgyOiXHiiAzQkqxkgmXK_Es84aMGUogVe_67cQijOA_tRXK22tgImlcL9cpf06GMPmpjtcFLFlL0gIe4AOsiTeUW3FThBw7q8neTaorx9KTtCfvUZTh4XLjxaaDYZCw1rPMzn1JCTCqVma6xJH8myWmK1fqJlYwHoFQh0i Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN0173702697;ngu01oct.23;2023Nov21.05:19;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0173702697-1">Sign Names in Yucatec Maya Sign Language </title> <p>This article analyzes the construction of sign names in an emerging sign language from Mexico, the Yucatec Maya Sign Language (YMSL). Data comes from elicited interviews as well as natural interactions collected by the authors and signers from two different villages, Chicán and Nohkop. Despite YMSL being an isolate language, sign name construction displays tendencies common in other sign languages, such as being based on descriptions of people's appearance and/or behavior. YMSL sign names also exhibit less common features, such as the extensive use of generic names, names by (kinship) association, and nonmanual sign names. Crucially, name construction in YMSL seems to follow the cultural naming rules of the surrounding Yucatec Maya community. A total of ninety-seven sign names were collected in the two communities: forty-two signs in Nohkop and fifty-five in Chicán. This article explores how the cultural setting can shape the development of sign names in an emerging sign language.</p> <p>In every human society, people are identified, recognized, and categorized by a name. In certain cultures, people have one unique name all their lives while, in others, individuals can have several names simultaneously or consecutively and, in many groups, the adscription of the name is socially determined as a result of historical processes. Because of that, names often encode forms of kinship, cultural history, and social norms. Linguistically, sign names can also tell a lot regarding the structure of the phonology and morphology of the language. Moreover, and especially in the case of emerging sign languages that do not inherit a linguistic system from a previously established sign language (at least when the influence from another sign language cannot be established), the influence of the surrounding culture can be revealing. In some cultures, sign names can follow general characteristics and be formed in the same way as common or personal names or surnames in the surrounding spoken language.</p> <p>In this article, we will consider personal sign names, that is, the sign a person is assigned to be referred to. We will provide more details regarding the various names a Yucatec Maya Sign Language (YMSL) signer can have in the Morphophonological Analysis section. One difference between signed versus spoken languages is that sign names are rarely used as vocatives (i.e. to call someone or someone's attention), and studies to date indicate that sign names are almost exclusively used as third-person references ([<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref1">7</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref2">36</reflink>]). In institutional settings (like deaf schools or clubs), sign names are frequently assigned to the person later in life, generally while attending school ([<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref3">44</reflink>]), and name change is a common practice throughout a person's lifetime, mainly guided by the change of interactional contexts ([<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref4">10</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref5">30</reflink>]).</p> <p>Previous studies in various sign languages of the world have shown that sign names fall into different categories along two ends of a continuum, ranging from ones coded in a relatively arbitrary manner to ones more concretely descriptive. The latter strategy is frequently based on a person's physical or behavioral characteristics. Tension between the two types seems to not only be correlated to the local perception of deafness and sign language, but also to the impact of literacy. The arbitrary character of names is particularly clear in languages like American Sign Language (ASL; [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref6">44</reflink>]), Japanese Sign Languge (JSL; [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref7">33</reflink>]) or Greek Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref8">21</reflink>]), where the level of literacy is high and a sign name is often based on the person's written name (in Latin, kanji/kana, or the Greek alphabet) through the use of fingerspelling. This tendency is also noticeable in the initialization of sign names, where the handshape represents the first letter of the written name. In some cases, the handshape can involve the form of the written name's initial but the sign itself is descriptive (see [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref9">9</reflink>] for Mexican Sign Language [LSM]). Existing literature indicates that most of the world's sign languages lean toward the other end of the spectrum in which sign names denote individuals by representing or describing their appearance, such as salient physical characteristics or idiosyncratic behaviors they commonly carry out. This seems to be the general tendency in British Sign Language (BSL; [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref10">10</reflink>]), Swedish Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref11">18</reflink>]), Turkish Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref12">45</reflink>]), Finnish Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref13">38</reflink>]), French Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref14">12</reflink>]), Quebec Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref15">14</reflink>]), Russian Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref16">15</reflink>]), Thai Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref17">32</reflink>]), Chinese Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref18">42</reflink>]), Ugandan Sign Language, Malian Sign Language, Adamorobe Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref19">34</reflink>]), and Libras ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref20">11</reflink>]), for instance. Not surprisingly, sign names are mostly descriptive in cultures where writing or literacy is low among signers, as in the case of many emerging sign languages, like Kata Kolok for instance (see [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref21">29</reflink>]) or Nebaj Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref22">19</reflink>]). Various sign languages, however, exhibit both sign name types, arbitrary and descriptive, as documented, for instance, in Estonian Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref23">36</reflink>]), Greek Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref24">21</reflink>]), New Zealand Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref25">31</reflink>]), Dutch Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref26">29</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref27">34</reflink>]), Mexican Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref28">9</reflink>]), and Bay Islands Sign Languages ([<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref29">1</reflink>]).</p> <p>This article examines sign names in YMSL, asking the following questions: How are names created, given YMSL's recent emergence and little or no contact with other sign languages? Do name patterns follow the cultural norms of the surrounding community (despite being based on the visual modality) or do they differ, and, if so, how? What linguistic processes underlie the construction of sign names in YMSL?</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-2">The Yucatec Maya Sign Language (YMSL)</hd> <p>Yucatec Maya Sign Language (YMSL) is an indigenous sign language used by deaf and hearing signers in Yucatec Mayan communities with a high incidence of deafness in the peninsula of Yucatán, Mexico. As of 2023, four communities with a high number of deaf people have been identified and investigated by the Yucatec Maya Sign Language documentation project (<ulink href="http://www.ymslproject.org">www.ymslproject.org</ulink>).</p> <p>YMSL is unrelated to LSM and developed outside of institutional settings out of the necessity for deaf and hearing community members to communicate with each other.[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref30">1</reflink>] The communities of study in this article (Chicán and Nohkop) are both located within the state of Yucatán but are several hours' drive from each other. While YMSL is used in different communities, all the varieties documented so far exhibit an important degree of overlap in their lexicon and grammar. Previous research by the authors and members of the YMSL Project have pointed out these commonalities and proposed some explanations regarding why YMSL can be considered a single language ([<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref31">23</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref32">27</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref33">39</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref34">40</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref35">41</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref36">46</reflink>]). While this article does not deal with the origin of YMSL, the main argument is that all YMSL variants, as it were, share a similar sociolinguistic background,</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Table 1.</p> <p>Overview of the communities' population</p> <p>and many signs are based on common gestural precursors, namely, on the extensive use of multimodal communication among hearing Yucatec Maya ([<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref37">28</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref38">23</reflink>]).</p> <p>Chicán is a village of 720 inhabitants, including sixteen deaf people who were between nineteen and sixy-nine years old at the time of the data collection. The oldest signer was in his early eighties when he passed away in 2020. In Nohkop, signers are all from a family of five siblings between the ages of twenty and twenty-eight who grew up together and among whom four are deaf.</p> <p>YMSL is a young language, with a maximum generational depth of three generations in Chicán. The oldest signer in Chicán, who passed away in 2020, was in his early eighties and only had hearing children, and he was the only deaf person in his age group. Only the subsequent generation—today between thirty and seventy years old—included a critical mass of deaf signers. Two deaf children (now twenty and twenty-four years old in 2023) were born to deaf parents and grew up surrounded by deaf and hearing signers. This community can be considered a "family village" ([<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref39">23</reflink>]), since most people within the community know each other and many are kin-related, and the specific interaction dynamics of YMSL signers conform to general Maya cultural interaction patterns. For instance, people do not consider themselves part of a deaf community but part of a specific family, and gender roles are maintained regardless of deafness (see [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref40">22</reflink>]).</p> <p>The deaf population of Nohkop is composed of four siblings in one family, who constitute the first generation of users of their YMSL variant. Over the past few years, the signing community in Nohkop has dissolved, as the three deaf women went to live with their husbands, either in the same village but in a different household or in the husband's village. As of 2023, the oldest deaf signer has two daughters (eight and four years old), both hearing. The second deaf female of the family has three children (thirteen, eleven, and eight years old), all hearing. The third deaf female has one girl (four years old), also hearing. All women are married to hearing men who learned YMSL through living with their wives. All the hearing children of the deaf women from Nohkop are fluent in YMSL. The deaf brother of the family is still unmarried.</p> <p>Regarding the sign language itself, mouthing in YMSL is only used in very few signs such as water (mouthed as agua, Spanish for "water"), or no (mouthed as ma', the word "no" in Yucatec Maya). One common kinship sign is mouthed as mamá, Spanish for "mother." Overall, mouthing is very limited in YMSL (but see Bisnath [in press] on this issue). Fingerspelling is also uncommon, only used in special occasions as code-switching, based on the little LSM some younger deaf learned at school or during visits by missionaries who use LSM. Initialization is equally absent, primarily because people do not write Maya (the spoken language used in the surrounding community). The only few initialized signs present in YMSL are borrowings from LSM (based on Spanish writing).</p> <p>Because YMSL emerged in the cultural context of the Yucatec Maya culture, a look into the use and formation of names in spoken Yucatec Maya is necessary to compare both languages and habits. Traditionally, among Yucatec Mayas, names were given later in childhood, once a child's personality had been considered fully revealed and their name had become self-evident. Among the Lacandon Maya (another Maya group from the Peninsula), this process usually lasted until the child was seven years old ([<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref41">6</reflink>]). Nowadays, Mayan parents register a civil name at the child's birth along with the surnames. However, this name does not always correspond to the personal name used in everyday life (although it is more likely to be employed in formal settings, like school, for instance). The personal name people will be referred by in everyday interactions is closer to a nickname, based on physical characteristics (e.g. x Boxi is literally "blacky," whose civil name is Beatriz but was nicknamed like this because she has dark skin), behavior (e.g. one man is known a ts'ajbil je' "scrambled eggs" for his favorite meal), or date of birth (e.g. Delfino is usually called Jesús because he was born on December 25th), but it can also be another name thought to suit the person better (e.g. Doña Ana's official civil name is Francisca). Having several names or nicknames at once is not uncommon. However, some nicknames can be used as vocative in every context, while others are considered slightly offensive and are used when the person is not around or as a tease. More information can be found in [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref42">16</reflink>].</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-3">Data and Method</hd> <p>We collected and analyzed a total of ninety-seven sign names in two communities where YMSL is in use: forty-two signs in Nohkop and fifty-five in Chicán. We focused primarily on the names of deaf people and those of their close kin. Many names were collected opportunistically (i.e. all the names were gathered from video recordings, interviews, or the authors' own recollections). Note that three of the authors are native from either Chicán (two young women, one deaf and one hearing) or Nohkop (one hearing girl), and the people described in this article are their parents, related kin, or neighbors. In this sense, they use their own intuition and knowledge about their language. Data were collected as part of an ongoing documentation project, the Yucatec Maya Sign Language documentation project, which integrates linguists as well as members of the communities under study. The sole languages used among the members of the project as well as with informants are Yucatec Maya and/or YMSL. As part of the documentation project, researchers conduct fieldwork several times a year, living in the villages and cohabiting with the inhabitants on a daily basis.</p> <p>All participants agreed to video-record a consent and were aware that their image and name would be published in academic work. Also, many deaf villagers from Chicán have appeared in international TV documentaries and regularly in local press.</p> <p>Two collection processes were employed: elicited data and video recordings of natural interactions. Regarding elicitation processes, collaborators, native YMSL signers from both communities, and the authors of this article recalled all the names of their kin they could think of and recorded them on camera. The first author has been working in both communities since 2009 and also has a list of many individuals from the community. Such lists were used to create one part of the database. The second collection method involved transcribing natural conversations between deaf signers and extracting the sign names used in these interactions. These video-recorded interactions were natural conversations between signers in which the researchers were not involved and sometimes not even present. Usually, signers (deaf and hearing from the same community) would gather to have a conversation among them and, if the researcher was present, they would ask to record it with the permission of the people present. The camera was visible but no instructions or orientations were given. In many cases, the researcher would leave the room and let the signers interact as they wished. This method is commonly used in conversation analysis ([<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref43">43</reflink>]). Mostly, conversations dealt with updating the interlocutor with information regarding the family, recent gossips, and everyday matters. We only have systematized data transcribed from natural conversation for names in Nohkop (part of the data from Chicán are still in the process of being systematized). In total, approximately an hour of data was analyzed; see table 2.</p> <p>All videos were transcribed using the program ELAN (https://archive.mpi.nl/tla/elan) ([<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref44">48</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref45">47</reflink>]) and coded for referent, number of signs, which hand was used, and repetition of the path movement. Data were consistent</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Table 2.</p> <p>List of Natural Conversations analyzed from Nohkop</p> <p>between elicitations and natural interactions. Because names tend to appear several times, data were aggregated for statistical analysis of types (and not tokens).</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-4">Sign Name Categories in YMSL</hd> <p>Before analyzing each category, it is important to clarify how names exist in Mayan culture and Mexican society. Everyone in Mexico has an official name (usually two names) and two surnames. The first surname is the father's first surname, and the second one is the mother's first surname. In spoken Yucatec Maya, people might have one or several personal names or "nicknames" (p'at k'aaba in Maya), and deaf as well as hearing signers can also have a sign name, which is the way they are known in the community. This sign name is not a signed version of their official name or their spoken nickname, and it has no translation either in Maya or Spanish (or English). For the purpose of this work, and to give the readers an idea of their meaning, we decided to translate all the sign names cited from our YMSL collection into English, but bear in mind that these are used in the community only as visual names. Our translation will be presented in all caps (e.g. curly hair); see example in table 3.</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Table 3.</p> <p>Example of a Signer with Official Name and Surname, Nickname, and Sign Name</p> <p>Sign names in YMSL, as in other sign languages, are not proper names that can be used for different people (e.g. John, Beatriz, etc.), but, rather, they are unique to each individual, that is, they are "personal" names to which we will refer to interchangeably in this article as sign names or names. In YMSL, sign names can evolve with time, and one person can also have multiple names (successively or simultaneously). Sign names can also be temporary. Sign names in YMSL are not direct loans from names in Yucatec Maya or Spanish, and names such as Juan or María are not represented in sign or fingerspelled. Also, the sign is the equivalent of the first name of the person, and there are no signs for surnames. Sign names for hearing people are not, like in many urban sign language communities, a symbol of acceptance into the community, but rather the default, a matter of convenience for the deaf signers to refer to individuals. In this article, we do not address other types of names besides anthroponyms, that is, names used to refer to people, known as personal names. Sign names in YMSL are assigned by family members (usually deaf signers) at some point in the person's life. How names are assigned is not clear. In Yucatec Maya tradition, people get several nicknames, most of them temporary, but some become more permanent and, over time, become their personal names.</p> <p>As in other sign languages, like ASL for instance, gender can be encoded in the sign name. While this distinction in ASL is typically indicated with the sign produced higher on the face for a male and lower for a female, in YMSL, the sign for FEMALE or MALE may be integrated into the compound of the sign name (see examples in figure 11, figure 14, figure 17, and figure 21). The sign for CATRINA (see figure 10) also indicates that the referent is a woman.</p> <p>In YMSL (at least in Chicán), a sign exists for name. It is produced with two hands, one passive with a flat handshape oriented with the palm upward and the second hand performing the gesture of signing a document (in Mexico, for a deaf person, a signature usually consists of writing one's name or just an X for illiterate people). The sign is illustrated in figure 1a, extracted from an actual instance of the little sister (on the left) asking her older sister (on the right) for her name and the latter confirming the request.</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 1.</p> <p>(a) name (b) my "(what is) my name?"</p> <p>Instead of a unique descriptive category, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref46">7</reflink>] proposes three categories of sign names motivated either by the bearer's being (Appearance), their doing (Person), or their history (Background) (see also [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref47">4</reflink>], for a similar typology). Because each language displays specific characteristics, we added two other categories that fit YMSL's name kinds: Names by Kinship Association and Generic Names. The following sections review examples of various types of sign name formation in YMSL, at least in the two communities discussed here.</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-5">Appearance</hd> <p>Physical Traits. One basic and common strategy to attribute people a sign name is to rely on a salient feature of their appearance. Most of the time, this strategy consists of pointing at, or tracing on the signers' body, the physical feature of the person referred to. The pointing or tracing can not only be iconic (e.g. showing the curl of the hair), but also indexical (pointing to the place on the face of the signer where the person referred to has a special mark, like a mole, for instance). Many of the sign names in YMSL are based on a body feature, such as being overweight or cross-eyed. However, some features used to create the sign name may be less permanent, like having curly hair. Even if the person does not have this hairstyle anymore, his or her name will, nonetheless, still be curly hair. In this case, the name would have ceased to be iconic and become symbolic.</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 2.</p> <p>Sign for fatty.oversized arm (Margarita) [Chicán].</p> <p>Figure 2 shows the sign name for Margarita, a glossing of fatty. oversized arm. The reason for this sign is that she was (according to Mayan standards at the time) overweight. The sign name directly refers to her physical appearance. The sign is produced on the non-dominant arm (at the height of the biceps), with the index and thumb of the dominant hand making a circle to, iconically, represent the (exaggerated) size of the arm, a symbol of being overweight. This sign is metonymic in the sense that the size of the circle made around the arm is indicative of the size of the whole body. The sign is also iconic, especially since the form traced by the index finger and the thumb is clearly exaggerated. As in spoken Yucatec Maya, reference to a person's physical appearance (like being fat, brown or white-skinned, etc.) is not considered offensive and is only taken as a distinctive and obvious feature of the individual.</p> <p>In Nohkop, Rossy used to have curly hair, and although she does not anymore, her sign name is still curly hair. The sign is produced with the index finger making a downward spinning movement describing long curly hair on the side of the head with both lips tightened together, as if sucking air without opening the mouth. Sometimes, the sign can be reduced to an oscillating finger (going left to right without going downward). In figure 3, Rossy exemplifies her</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 3.</p> <p>curly hair (Rossy) [Nohkop].</p> <p>own sign name, curly hair. Rossy tends to produce her own sign with the palm looking forward, but this is not consistent, and other signers might produce it with the palm oriented toward themselves.</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-6">Typical Accessories and Clothing</hd> <p>Some sign names, especially in Nohkop, are based on typical accessories worn by people. Although these are not always permanent attributes of the person, they might have become distinctive enough to be used to create a unique sign name fitting the category of Appearance signs. In figure 4, the grandfather of the signers from Nohkop is referred to by the sign hat, an iconic sign representing the hat he used to wear. The sign is produced with both hands (figure 4a) or with one hand (figure 4b), showing the size and shape of a hat (at the head level). Although wearing a hat is not common among men nowadays, it is a typical element of older men's clothing, especially the ones who work in the field.</p> <p>In Nohkop, the community consist of one single family, and the grandfather is the grandfather of all the signers (deaf and hearing), hence the sign for hat (although it could be generic) only refers to a single individual, the signers' grandfather. However, when new signers entered the community, the husbands of the deaf women started using the signs for "grandfather" (hat) and "grandmother" (old.lady) for their own grandparents. As a result, these signs then changed semantics</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 4.</p> <p>hat "grandfather" [Nohkop].</p> <p>and ceased to be personal names to become kinship relational terms used with a possession marker (e.g. ix-grandmother "my grandmother")</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-7">Person (Characteristic Behaviors)</hd> <p>Some sign names are based on typical or habitual behaviors of the people denoted. Following Börtsell (2017), these names are classified under the category of Person. In contrast to Appearance signs, Person signs are more likely to involve more complex movements and repetitions, as to describe the action produced by the person referred to.</p> <p>Figure 5 shows the personal sign name of a young man who has the habit of putting his ring finger in his mouth, which is, according</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 5.</p> <p>ring finger in the mouth (Alejandro) [Nohkop].</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 6.</p> <p>Mr. bean (Wicho) [Nohkop].</p> <p>to the signers, his typical pose. The sign form is motivated by his pose and is produced with the ring finger placed in the mouth corner with an iterative movement from left to right.</p> <p>Figure 6 presents the sign for a deaf young man from Nohkop who regularly imitated the distinctive behavior of the main character in the TV show Mr. Bean, played by Rowan Atkinson. Such idiosyncratic behavior was the motivation for his sign name: raised index finger or, as we prefer to gloss it, Mr. bean. This name was probably given by his older deaf sisters and when asked about its meaning, they said that their brother "was always acting like Mr. Bean." Note that giving nicknames based on TV shows is fairly common among hearing Yucatec Mayas, especially among youngsters. The sign is produced with the index finger up, like teaching something, the typical gesture/posture (according to the signers) used by Mr. Bean, and produced by the young boy. Note that both lips are squeezed together. The palm is usually facing inwards.</p> <p>Sign names based on typical behavior are fairly common. In figure 7, Gerardo, from Nohkop, is referred to by a sign name based on the local holophrastic gesture ko' oten waye' "come here". The sign is produced with the open palm waiving from an up position (shown on the left in figure 7) to a down position (on the right).</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 7.</p> <p>come here (Gerardo) [Nohkop].</p> <p>The motivation for this sign is that, for some time, the young man wanted to ask one of the deaf girls to come to talk to him. Although the event happened only a few times, this was enough to attribute him this specific sign name and to subsequently refer to him by it.</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-8">Background</hd> <p>Börtsell (2017) defines the category Background to encompass features such as place of origin or inheritance of a name from a relative. However, among YMSL signers, such features are not relevant for name formation, mainly because everyone is from the same place. Yet, one comparable strategy is to refer to a remarkable event that happened to the person, forming his or her background. In contrast to the category of Person, the feature for Background is a specific event, usually in the past or in infancy, that became the basis for the construction of the name sign. This event might not be relevant or existing anymore. This way of creating sign names is also common in San Juan Quiahije Chatino Sign Language ([<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref48">20</reflink>]).</p> <p>Figure 8 shows the sign name of José from Chicán, a seventy-year-old man in 2022, who broke his arm when he was a young boy. This event was the motivation for his sign name broken forearm, used up until now. The sign can be produced in two possible ways, both involving two hands. Figure 8a displays the height where the forearm was broken with one open palm. In figure 8b, the sign is produced with one hand holding the wrist.</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 8.</p> <p>broken forearm (José); both versions are presented in (a) and (b). [Chicán].</p> <p>In figure 9, the signer performs the sign for Santos, known in Chicán as sick, as he got ill when he was a boy. The sign is produced with the back of the hand touching the neck, the way temperature is usually measured among the Yucatec Mayas. In this case, again, a significant event in the youth of the signer was enough to assign him his sign name for life.</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 9.</p> <p>sick (Santos) [Chicán].</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-9">Names by Association</hd> <p>Names by Association are common in spoken Yucatec Maya ([<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref49">16</reflink>]), but also in other Mayan languages ([<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref50">8</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref51">17</reflink>]). In these cultures, the default way of referring to a person is by their name or nickname, but more frequently than not, to mention the type of relationship the person has to the speaker or to another referent. For instance, if a woman is in a compadrazgo relationship (or "coparenthood", a traditional, ritual fictive kinship) with someone named María, she has to refer to her as inkoomadre Maarya "my daughter/son's godmother María". She will also not be able to use her name as a vocative and will have to call her komadre (a term used for fictive kinship relation between women). Another common way to refer to someone is to specify their kinship relationship to another person, as in ufaamilia h Waan "John's wife." In other cultures, people's names are directly inherited from their parents. In the Swedish tradition, for instance, people were habitually referred to as "the son/daughter of" by using the suffix -sson or -sdotter, as in Petersson or Petersdotter ("Peter's son" or "Peter's daughter"). A similar strategy is also common in Russian, where the name Vasil'yevna is literally the "daughter of Vasyli." In the Semitic tradition, the mention of the father's name is also common. In Hebrew, either ben "son of" or bat "daughter of" is used after the child's name. In Arabic, ibn "son of" or bint "daughter of" is placed between the name of the person and his/her ascendant, as in, for instance, Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān "Ahmad son of Fadlan." Such a strategy is not common in sign languages, although [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref52">20</reflink>] does mention the possible existence of similar Names by Association in San Juan Quiahije Chatino Sign Language. However, in her work, it is not clear whether they are inherited sign names or sign Names by Association.</p> <p>In YMSL, such a strategy exists, but is a mix of the Maya and the other traditions mentioned. The personal name of the individual encodes his or her gender, usually a height classifier, and the sign name of the relative, following this template: [gender+clas.h+sign name of the kin]. Note that the order of the signs in the compound is not fixed, as is also the case with many other compounds in YMSL (see [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref53">39</reflink>]). Personal sign Names by Kinship Association are frequent in Chicán but rare in Nohkop. It is important to stress that these names constitute the actual personal name of the individual and are distinct from relational names (see below). They also differ from inherited names, that is, a similar name applied to a different person (as mentioned in Börtsell 2017).</p> <p>In figure 10, Geli, from Chicán, shows her sign name. She is the daughter of José or broken forearm (see figure 8), and her sign name is broken forearm's daughter. Her personal name is composed of three signs. The first (figure 10a) is broken forearm, which refers to her father's name. The second sign (figure 10b) is glossed in Yucatec Maya as x katriina (from the Spanish "Catarina," meaning "unmarried woman," as it sometimes does in Yucatec Maya). Among YMSL signers, the sign catrina, however, usually refers to girls or women who do not wear a huipil, the local traditional long dress worn by older women. This sign is produced by placing one hand on the hip. This sign also indicates the gender for women. Finally, the last sign (figure 10c) is a human classifier (or clas.h.) used to refer to the age and size of the referent ([<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref54">39</reflink>]). Note that the order of the signs can also be produced as catrina-clas.h-broken forearm.</p> <p>In Chicán, this template is used for any son or daughter of a deaf parent. Interestingly, sometimes siblings appear to have similar names. However, when there are several children, subtle differences are present in the signs. For instance, Grety and Merli both have a similar sign name daughter of sick (=santos) (see figure 9). Both names have the same exact structure (see figure 11), but because Merli is the</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 10.</p> <p>broken forearm's daughter (Geli) [Chicán].</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 11.</p> <p>daughter of santos: (a-c) grety; (e-g) Merli [Chicán].</p> <p>older sister, the clas.h. is produced higher than for her sister Grety. Notice the clas.h. height difference between figure 11b, produced just below shoulder level, and figure 11f, at head level. Interestingly, this clas.h. sign is indexical, contrastively marking the difference between the younger and older daughter. The same name is used for their brother, but, instead of the first sign being female, it is male. In this later case, because he is the only male child in the family, the height of the clas.h. becomes irrelevant.</p> <p>A similar three-sign template can also be based on the relationship with the spouse. Figure 12 presents the name of Neydi, known by her sign name as wife of broken forearm, that is, "José's wife." Her name is composed of three signs compounded as follows: (a) wedding, which implies that the referent is someone's spouse,</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 12.</p> <p>wife of broken forearm (=josé) (Neydi) [Chicán].</p> <p>(b) the sign catrina, indicating that the referent is a woman who wears Western clothing (and not the traditional huipil), and (c) the name of the kin with whom she is associated, in this case, her husband José or broken forearm.</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-10">Generic Names</hd> <p>Generic names are fairly common in sign languages, usually used to refer to new people who do not have a proper name assigned to them yet. Spoken Yucatec Maya also relies on such strategies. Calling a person le máako' "the guy" or le x griingaa' "the white/foreigner female" is common and can even last for a period of time, as people do not bother to learn new proper names to be polite or to use them as vocatives. Interestingly, although such names are generic in nature, they can be used to refer to a specific person, at least for a period of time (see [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref55">26</reflink>] for a discussion on the use of generic terms in Yucatec Maya).</p> <p>In YMSL, some generic sign names are used for new acquaintances who do not and may never have a specific personal sign name. This sign name type falls between the categories of personal sign names and generic nouns used to refer to a category of persons (e.g. boy, man, etc.). While generic in nature, a generic name can be used</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 13.</p> <p>sucked mango or mango-chupado in Spanish) a generic name for young males wearing the typical haircut presented in figure 13c [Nohkop].</p> <p>to refer to a specific individual, but in a determined context. In other words, as in spoken Yucatec Maya, these names function as temporary personal names. People who enter the community network are, at some point, given a proper sign name, as it has been the case with the first author of this article, see example in figure 14.</p> <p>These generic names can be given to a specific segment of the population or to one individual, as in the case of the sign name mango-chupado (literally "sucked mango," which resembles the shape of a mango's oblong seed after the rich fiber fruit has been sucked). mango-chupado refers to a hairstyle used as a sign name applied to adolescents or young men who considered this hairstyle very fashionable, as the hairstyle was fairly common for several years (illustrated in figure 13c). The sign is exemplified in figures 13a and 13b. Note that the sign can be either produced with both hands straight up, representing the shape of the hairstyle (as in figure 13a), or with an iterative sign, with both hands showing how the hair is brushed upward (figure 13b). One assistant on the YMSL project was referred to by the deaf people of Nohkop as mango-chupado during the several years he participated in the study.</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-11">Name Evolution</hd> <p>In this section, we explore some uses of sign names in YMSL, examining how people can have simultaneous sign names at a given time and how they can change their name throughout their lifetime.</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-12">Simultaneous Names</hd> <p>It is quite common in the Yucatec Maya culture for people to bear several names simultaneously, generally used in distinct contexts. It is common for individuals to be called by their nickname within the family and in their village, but by their official name at school or in other institutional settings. The use of multiple names is also common in YMSL, and people are regularly referred to by several names during a period of time by the same signers. For instance, Lorena has two personal names in YMSL, used in both villages. The first one is almond shape eyes, produced with the index finger pushing on the outer side of the eye, as to make the eyes look more like the stereotype of a Chinese person's eyes. She is said to be Chinese looking. Her second name is flat nose, a sign produced with one finger pressed on the nose to represent her flat nose. Both names refer exclusively to Lorena, and both can be used in the same conversation. Note that both are based on her appearance and specific characteristics. The same goes for Margarita (see figure 2), or fatty.oversized arm, who is also called catrina+huipil, a more generic but also a bit more courteous name. In this case, catrina means "unmarried woman."</p> <p>In Nohkop, we found only one deaf signer who has two simultaneous names. In Chicán, however, we encountered eleven signers who have two simultaneous names (five of them are deaf people from the community).</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-13">Name Change</hd> <p>Name change is also a frequent phenomenon in YMSL. While the expected path is for a generic name to be replaced by a specific name, it is also common to see a change from one established name to another.</p> <p>In the case of the first author, his first assigned name was a generic and descriptive two-part sign: clas.h. (tall)+pony.tail in Nohkop and male+clas.h.(tall) in Chicán (presented in figures 14a and 14b), and it later got changed in Nohkop to thank. you-teeth (figure 14c). This name change occurred because the author wanted to show the signers his gratitude for their willingness to share their time and language and tried to reproduce (in a clumsy</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 14.</p> <p>tall man (a–b) generic name [Chicán-Nohkop] to teeth-thank you; (c) specific sign name (Author) [Nohkop].</p> <p>manner) the Mexican gesture for "thank you." The nonmanual part of the sign comes from his prominent front teeth. It seems that this name was created and used by the deaf signers while the author was not in the community, and he found out about it after coming back for his third fieldwork.</p> <p>Some people saw their sign name changed because of a new trait. This was the case for Lucas, who used to be known as waving hand (figure 15a), but when he hurt himself badly on the head, he became scarface (figure 15b). Interestingly, during the time he</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 15.</p> <p>(a) waving hand and (b) scarface (Lucas's original and new names) [Nohkop].</p> <p>was recovering, he was known simultaneously by both names. The first sign was a wave of the hand, like saying hello (figure 15a), and was based on a remarkable event: When he first met his future wife (a deaf girl from Nohkop), he used to flirt with her by waving at her to get her attention. The second sign name is shorter, produced on the right side of the forehead around the eye, tracing the place and size of the scar (figure 15b). He is now known and referred to only by the latter sign.</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-14">Other Forms of Person Reference</hd> <p>Finally, as in any language, people can be referred to in a generic fashion within the context of the family or inside the family network, for instance, using relational nouns such as my mother (see for instance [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref56">35</reflink>]). Note that these references are not personal names. Relational names are also in use in YSML, such as kin terms like dad, grandfather, grandmother, brother, etc. Others are categories of people such as boy, baby, etc. and used with a possessive marker. For instance, Patricia refers to her father as jefe "boss" (figure 16a) and to her brother as éet[<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref57">2</reflink>] "companion, sibling" (figure 16b).</p> <p>Another use of the sign éet, is illustrated in figure 17 with the sign old.woman, meaning, in composition, "my grandmother." In this case, the sign éet replaces the possessive marker.</p> <p>Finally, metonymic pointing associated with names is a common way of disambiguating person reference ([<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref58">23</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref59">3</reflink>]). This is how Patricia refers to Adan and his sisters (who used to live in the same house). A common way to refer to Adan and his sisters by others from the village is shown by Patricia in figure 18, where she refers to the deaf people, hearing-neg, who live southeast from "here," pointing to the location of Adan's house. Probably because the village is a small-scale environment, the spatial indication is enough to disambiguate the referents.</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 16.</p> <p>Patricia referring to her (a) father as jefe "boss" and to her (b) brother as éet (=companion) "sibling" (b) [Chicán].</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 17.</p> <p>"My grandmother" (companion+old.woman) [Nohkop].</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 18.</p> <p>hear-neg-index<subs>_South-East</subs> "The deaf people who live over there."</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-15">Sociological Distribution of Sign Names</hd> <p>In this section, we look at sign names quantitatively and according to their sociological distribution in order to identify tendencies in the two communities considered. A quantitative analysis of the signs collected in Nohkop and Chicán is provided in table 4. We examine the distribution of name types according to deaf/hearing status and gender. A contrastive analysis of people's names from within and outside of the communities is not included, as we only have a handful of names of people non-native to the communities.</p> <p>A comparison of sign name types by village indicates a clear overall preference for descriptive signs in Nohkop with 69 percent of the forty-two sign names collected there being descriptive. In Chicán, however, of the fifty-five names collected, sign names based on appearance only represent 29.1 percent, while two thirds are generic names (25.5 percent) and Names by Kinship Association (34.5 percent).</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-16">Distribution by Deaf/Hearing Status</hd> <p>An analysis according to deaf/hearing status in each village reveals that in Nohkop, there is a strong tendency for sign names to be based on Appearance for the hearing (however, bear in mind that there are only five sign names for deaf people in our database). In Chicán, Appearance is a common naming category for both deaf and hearing, and it is also worth noting the large number of names by association used in this village for both deaf and hearing people (in almost equal proportion, eleven (34 percent) and eight (35 percent), respectively). In Chicán, many sign names for hearing people are generic compared to sign names for deaf people (eleven, [34 percent] versus three [13 percent]).</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-17">Distribution Based on Community Size</hd> <p>A notable difference exists between Chicán and Nohkop regarding Names by Kinship Association (in average: 34.6 percent in Chicán and 2.7 percent in Nohkop). The high frequency we notice in Chicán can partly be explained by the size of the community and the age of the signers. In this village, the majority of signers are older and have children whose personal names are Names by Kinship Association</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Table 4.</p> <p>Comparison of the percentages of sign name types between Nohkop (N = 42) and Chicán (N = 55) for deaf and hearing people</p> <p>with their kin. Such names are created generally after the name of a deaf father or husband. One hypothesis is that this strategy is useful to reduce the number of sign names to be created and to highlight the kinship relations of the individual (as in Nordic and Semitic traditions). It also echoes the Yucatec Maya cultural habit of naming people through their relation to someone else. In Chicán, this is a fairly common process, as in the case of "son and daughter of," "spouse of" (usually "wife of"), and "brother of" or "sister of" for siblings. Additionally, while there is also a considerable number of generic signs in Chicán, such as catrina ("unmarried woman"), such sign names can be used as personal names, but some can be used as relational nouns with a possessive marker in order to avoid ambiguity between referents (e.g. referring to "my" versus "his" mother).</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-18">Distribution Based on Gender</hd> <p>As [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref60">7</reflink>] points out, gender is another sociological feature that is prone to modify the type of name one person has. Table 5 shows a breakdown by gender of the sign names in both communities.</p> <p>In Nohkop, Appearance is the preferred strategy for sign name creation both for women (81 percent) and men (57 percent). Also, in Nohkop, a third of the men have sign names based on Person (33 percent), which can be explained by the fact that many of the men are not from the family and were named (by the majority of signers, who are deaf females in this community) on their behavioral traits.</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Table 5.</p> <p>Distribution of sign names according to gender in Nohkop and Chicán</p> <p>In Chicán, many women have a sign based on Names by Kinship Association (50 percent of the female names). This tendency is explained by the fact that many women, daughters, and, especially, spouses, tend to be named after their father or husband (as we saw in the examples above). The rest of the female sign names are either Generic names (30 percent) or based on Appearance (20 percent). Sign names for men in Chicán are, in contrast, mostly based on Appearance (40 percent of the men' sign names). The rest of the male names are distributed almost equally among Background (16 percent), Names by Kinship Association (16 percent), and Generic name (20 percent).</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-19">Morphophonological Analysis</hd> <p>This section discusses some features of the phonology of sign names in YMSL, like places of articulation and the use of face only, as well as morphological processes involved in the formation of sign names, like compounding.</p> <p>Comparative studies examining sign names reveal some cross-cultural consistencies. For instance, Nyst and Baker (2003) compared several African sign languages such as Ugandan Sign Language, Malian Sign Language, and Adamorobe Sign Language with the official sign language of the Netherlands (NGT) and found that, although unrelated, sign names in these sign languages share phonological features. For instance, sign names are typically articulated around the face and usually produced with only one hand. [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref61">29</reflink>] also compared NGT with Kata Kolok and indicated that there is a strong preference for the head as the main place of articulation for sign names in both languages. In NGT, sign names are overwhelmingly produced around the head (92 percent). This is also the case in YMSL, as we detail in the following section.</p> <p>While previous studies have shown that signing around the face is common for sign names, nonmanual articulators are usually only added to disambiguate signs that are too similar. In most sign languages, sign names are only manual, and nonmanual articulators, such as mouthing, usually correspond to the pronunciation of the spoken name in the oral language ([<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref62">31</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref63">32</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref64">36</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref65">44</reflink>]). In rural and isolated emerging sign languages, where mouthing from the spoken language is rare, many sign names are nonetheless produced with a mouth gesture, such as chewing or biting, as in Kata Kolok, for instance ([<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref66">29</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-20">Obligatory Nonmanual Articulators in Sign Names</hd> <p>In the YMSL variant used in Nohkop, nonmanual elements are frequently obligatory. Figure 19a shows the sign name for Mimi: hair bun-fatty.puffed cheeks, aunt of the signers in Nohkop. She usually wears her hair in a bun on the top of her head, depicted by the hand in the shape of a sphere above the head. She is also, according to the signers, overweight, and this feature is represented in her sign name by the puffy cheeks. Aurora, on the other hand, is a cousin of the deaf signers and has strabismus, a feature that is represented in her sign name: cross-eyed (figure 19b). The sign is produced with</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 19.</p> <p>(a) hair bun-fatty.puffed cheeks (Mimi) and (b) cross-eyed (Aurora); both signs are produced with obligatory nonmanual components [Nohkop].</p> <p>the index finger in front of the face showing the movement of the eyes (the eyes can be crossed to mimic the affliction of the girl). The sign also includes a mouth gesture, a protuberated tongue. In both of these cases, but also in the names presented in figure 3, figure 6, and figure 14, the nonmanual elements of the sign (lips or teeth) are indispensable for the sign to be unambiguous.</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-21">Face Only</hd> <p>While many sign names include a nonmanual element, others, albeit fewer in number, are produced using facial, nonmanual elements only. This is the case, for instance, for the name of a deaf signer from Nohkop, Mili, whose sign name is teeth. The sign is produced with the upper teeth touching the bottom lip with multiple repetitions; see figure 20. In Nohkop, three nonmanual-only sign names were encountered, but none in Chicán.</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-22">Other Places of Articulation</hd> <p>In Chicán, two sign names involves pointing to the knee. This sign is present in the sign name of Sulema, literally daughter of knee (knee being the sign name of her father). See figure 21, where she produces her sign name. Another frequent sign not involving the head/face area in use in Chicán is produced on the hip: catrina (see figure 10b)</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 20.</p> <p>teeth (Mili) a sign name produced on the face only [Nohkop].</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Figure 21.</p> <p>daughter of knee (Sulema) [Chicán].</p> <p>In YMSL, as in other sign languages, the space around the head is the main location for sign names. [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref67">29</reflink>] indicates that, in NGT, for instance, the body, the nondominant hand, and neutral space are infrequent. In contrast, in Kata Kolok, several sign names are articulated at the top of the head, the hip, and the periphery of the body next to the shoulders. Like Kata Kolok, YMSL also exploits other points of articulation such as the mouth, nose, lips, teeth, hips, and knees. In Nohkop, three sign names are produced with the face only, that is, they are exclusively produced as nonmanual signs or "nonhanded signs" ([<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref68">13</reflink>]).</p> <p>Table 6 shows the distribution of the points of articulation used in the sign names collected in both villages. Note that, in this calculation, we did not include clas.h and gender maker (produced around or on the head). Also, as several signs are compounds, we took all signs into account, so our results might be higher than the total number of sign names.</p> <p>As expected from the literature on sign names, the main point of articulation is around the head ([<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref69">29</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref70">34</reflink>]). In Nohkop, 36.7 percent of the signs are articulated in that</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Table 6.</p> <p>Main points of articulation and nonmanual articulators for sign names in YMSL in Nohkop and Chicán</p> <p>location, while in Chicán, the proportion is 31 percent. More non-manual sign names are found in Nohkop than in Chicán. Three signs are nonmanual only, and ten manual signs involved a nonmanual articulator (usually a mouth or eye gesture).</p> <p>In Chicán, some points of articulation are linked to specific and recurrent signs. For instance, signs produced at the hip include the CATRINA sign that is common in women's names. Those articulated on the neck are signs derived from Santos's sign name (i.e. his name and his son's and daughters' names; see figure 9). The same goes for José's sign name's associations on the arm (see figure 8). We also divided signs produced in front of the body (i.e. in the area in front of the signer's body) and signs directly produced on the chest (which usually refer to the female breasts to refer to women).</p> <p>In both communities, signers favor signs produced with only one hand, a reflection of a cross-linguistic tendency found among rural/shared sign languages as well as in more established sign languages ([<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref71">29</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref72">34</reflink>]).</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Table 7.</p> <p>Number of single signs and compounds used in sign names in YMSL in Nohkop and Chicán</p> <p>Finally, table 7 presents the number of single signs versus compounds used to form sign names in Nohkop and Chicán. While there is a greater number of manual single signs than nonmanual signs, many of them are complemented with nonmanual articulators. Only eight signs are produced as two-sign compounds in Nohkop, while no three-sign compounds were observed. In Chicán, almost half of the sign names are single signs, but we notice a greater use of compounding to create names compared to Nohkop, especially in generic names. Not surprisingly, three-sign compounds are the norm for Names by Kinship Association, following the compound structure we described earlier: [gender-clas.h.name.of.kin].</p> <p>It is notable that many signs, especially single sign names, involve an internal repetition of the sign, precisely a repetition of the path movement, whether or not they are single or compound signs (40.5 percent in Nohkop with seventeen signs and 20.4 percent in Chicán with eleven signs). For instance, in the case of Adan (curly hair), the sign curly hair is repeated various times. Another example is José (broken hand; figure 8). The sign involves the repetition of the dominant hand's movement (the other hand just holds the arm).</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-23">Discussion</hd> <p>Data from YMSL show that this emerging language follows a general tendency to create sign names based on the description of physical or behavioral features. However, YMSL sign names also exhibit constructions not widely attested in other sign languages. Among them, three main uncommon patterns have been documented: personal names based on association with a relative (usually in association to a deaf relative), the use of obligatory nonmanual features, and the presence of nonmanual-only sign names, at least in Nohkop.</p> <p>While the construction and creation of sign names is primarily driven by the deaf members of the communities, the cultural surrounding is clearly influential. We notice many tendencies in YMSL that also exist in spoken Yucatec Maya: descriptive names based on appearance and individual habits or events, simultaneous names, and change of names over time, as well as the use of generic names. These strategies are not specifically Maya and are also found in other rural, small-scale communities (see [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref73">34</reflink>]; Luztenberger [2018]). However, the high number of sign Names by Kinship Association in Chicán is particularly striking. While common in many spoken languages, it is rare in the descriptions available to date in sign languages. The tendency to refer to people by association or ritual relationship is, however, widespread and sometimes obligatory in the Maya culture and in Mesoamerica, more generally. It appears that, while not being a strict transfer from spoken Yucatec Maya, this cultural tendency has transferred to YMSL.</p> <p>Previous studies have shown that sign names are usually produced around the head. This is also the case in YMSL. However, YMSL from Nohkop presents a significant use of nonmanual obligatory articulators and sign names produced using the face only. As Luztenberger (2018) points out, the use of nonmanual sign names is an exception in the sign languages of the world (see [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref74">34</reflink>] for instance). [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref75">1</reflink>] also mentions nonmanual sign names in Bay Islands SL (see also [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref76">1</reflink>] and [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref77">3</reflink>]).</p> <p>Regarding sign name attribution, YMSL signers seem to decide when and what sign names will be assigned to an individual. The amount of time people have been known by the community seems not to matter in assigning a sign. Some people are named instantly while others can have a generic name for some time. While sign names are common and easily created in YMSL, as data shows, in a small community, like an extended family, specific sign names attributed to a person are not obligatory. Within the context of the family, many people are only referred to by generic names, such as clas.h, showing a relative size that stands for their age or place in the family. When referring to nonpresent children, interlocutors usually can identify who they are, and size is enough to establish reference successfully (see [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref78">39</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0173702697-24">Conclusion</hd> <p>Personal names are, in many cultures, a reflection of social norms, cultural traits, and historical processes. The case of YMSL, for being a recently created linguistic system, provides interesting data to our understanding of how the surrounding cultural setting can be influential in the development of a sign language. As we have shown, YSML follows some general tendencies for name creation in other sign languages over the world while also displaying specific and less frequently attested characteristics.</p> <p>The study of emerging sign languages is crucial to better understand processes of language creation and evolution. A careful analysis of the internal features of the language should always be complemented by an examination of the influences of the cultural setting. In order to do so, careful and holistic fieldwork should be conducted, taking into account not only deaf signers, but also hearing signers, as well as the general community in which the sign language is evolving and where it is constantly updated (especially nowadays with globalization and the increasing availability of technologies). Collaboration with members of the community is also fundamental, not only when it comes to data collection, but also in the process of data analysis and interpretation.</p> <ref id="AN0173702697-25"> <title> Footnotes </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref29" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Along the years, we have extensively documented the origin of this sign language, interviewing members of the various communities and looking at diachronic data. Johnson (1991) documented the origin of the language in Chicán already in the 1980s. People's accounts are clear: The language was developed by hearing and deaf people (and not, for instance, by deaf people alone). In Nohkop, one hearing bilingual-bimodal cousin was instrumental in developing new signs along with her deaf cousins. Furthermore, it is also obvious that the language developed among peers, since the hearing parents are usually not very fluent in the sign language. This means, again, that hearing cousins and siblings were directly involved in the construction of the language from the beginning. It should be noted that deaf signers in these rural and indigenous communities behave differently from those who use urban and institutional languages. They did not grow up among deaf people only or attend deaf clubs or deaf-only gatherings. The language evolves within the context of an extended family that includes deaf and hearing signers.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref57" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> In spoken Yucatec Maya, éet "companion, fellow" is typically used in composition with another noun to express a relationship, such as éet meyaj "work companion, colleague," éet kaajal "from the same town, place" éet najil "people who share a life in a house (like spouse)," etc.</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <ref id="AN0173702697-26"> <title> REFERENCES </title> <blist> <bibtext> Ali, K. 2020. A Socio-Historical Description of Bay Islands Sign Language. https://<ulink href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQMlHsfsGS4">www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQMlHsfsGS4</ulink>.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> ———. 2020. A Socio-Historical Description of Bay Islands Sign Language. Presentation at the 14th Biennial High Desert Linguistics Society Conference. 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ELAN: A Professional Framework for Multimodality Research. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC'06). LREC 2006, Genoa, Italy. <ulink href="http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2006/pdf/153%5fpdf.pdf">http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2006/pdf/153%5fpdf.pdf</ulink>.</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Olivier Le Guen; Rossy Kinil Canche; Merli Collí Hau and Geli Collí Collí</p> <p>Reported by Author; Author; Author; Author</p> <p></p> <p>Olivier Le Guen is a researcher working on Yucatec Maya culture and language and started documenting the YMSL in 2009.</p> <p>Rossy Kinil Canche is a trilingual member of the YMSL community of Nohkop, and she was a member of the YMSL documentation project for several years.</p> <p>Merli Collí Hau is a trilingual (Coda) member of the YMSL community of Chicán, and she was a member of the YMSL documentation project for several years.</p> <p>Geli Collí Collí is a deaf member of the YMSL community of Chicán, and she was a member of the YMSL documentation project for several years.</p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib36" firstref="ref2"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib44" firstref="ref3"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl3" bibid="bib10" firstref="ref4"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl4" bibid="bib30" firstref="ref5"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl5" bibid="bib33" firstref="ref7"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl6" bibid="bib21" firstref="ref8"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl7" bibid="bib18" firstref="ref11"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl8" bibid="bib45" firstref="ref12"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl9" bibid="bib38" firstref="ref13"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl10" bibid="bib12" firstref="ref14"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl11" bibid="bib14" firstref="ref15"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl12" bibid="bib15" firstref="ref16"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl13" bibid="bib32" firstref="ref17"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl14" bibid="bib42" firstref="ref18"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl15" bibid="bib34" firstref="ref19"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl16" bibid="bib11" firstref="ref20"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl17" bibid="bib29" firstref="ref21"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl18" bibid="bib19" firstref="ref22"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl19" bibid="bib31" firstref="ref25"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl20" bibid="bib23" firstref="ref31"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl21" bibid="bib27" firstref="ref32"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl22" bibid="bib39" firstref="ref33"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl23" bibid="bib40" firstref="ref34"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl24" bibid="bib41" firstref="ref35"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl25" bibid="bib46" firstref="ref36"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl26" bibid="bib28" firstref="ref37"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl27" bibid="bib22" firstref="ref40"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl28" bibid="bib16" firstref="ref42"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl29" bibid="bib43" firstref="ref43"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl30" bibid="bib48" firstref="ref44"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl31" bibid="bib47" firstref="ref45"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl32" bibid="bib20" firstref="ref48"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl33" bibid="bib17" firstref="ref51"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl34" bibid="bib26" firstref="ref55"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl35" bibid="bib35" firstref="ref56"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl36" bibid="bib13" firstref="ref68"></nolink> |
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| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: Sign Names in Yucatec Maya Sign Language – Name: Language Label: Language Group: Lang Data: English – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Olivier+Le+Guen%22">Olivier Le Guen</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Rossy+Kinil+Canche%22">Rossy Kinil Canche</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Merli+Collí+Hau%22">Merli Collí Hau</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Geli+Collí+Collí%22">Geli Collí Collí</searchLink> – Name: TitleSource Label: Source Group: Src Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Sign+Language+Studies%22"><i>Sign Language Studies</i></searchLink>. 2023 24(1):128-167. – Name: Avail Label: Availability Group: Avail Data: Gallaudet University Press. 800 Florida Avenue NE, Denison House, Washington, DC 20002-3695. Tel: 202-651-5488; Fax: 202-651-5489; Web site: http://gupress.gallaudet.edu/SLS.html – Name: PeerReviewed Label: Peer Reviewed Group: SrcInfo Data: Y – Name: Pages Label: Page Count Group: Src Data: 40 – Name: DatePubCY Label: Publication Date Group: Date Data: 2023 – Name: TypeDocument Label: Document Type Group: TypDoc Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Evaluative – Name: Subject Label: Descriptors Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Sign+Language%22">Sign Language</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Mayan+Languages%22">Mayan Languages</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Foreign+Countries%22">Foreign Countries</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Self+Concept%22">Self Concept</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Language+Classification%22">Language Classification</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Nonverbal+Communication%22">Nonverbal Communication</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Language+Acquisition%22">Language Acquisition</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Cultural+Influences%22">Cultural Influences</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Skill+Development%22">Skill Development</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Deafness%22">Deafness</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Native+Language%22">Native Language</searchLink> – Name: Subject Label: Geographic Terms Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Mexico%22">Mexico</searchLink> – Name: DOI Label: DOI Group: ID Data: 10.1353/sls.2023.a912332 – Name: ISSN Label: ISSN Group: ISSN Data: 0302-1475<br />1533-6263 – Name: Abstract Label: Abstract Group: Ab Data: This article analyzes the construction of sign names in an emerging sign language from Mexico, the Yucatec Maya Sign Language (YMSL). Data comes from elicited interviews as well as natural interactions collected by the authors and signers from two different villages, Chicán and Nohkop. Despite YMSL being an isolate language, sign name construction displays tendencies common in other sign languages, such as being based on descriptions of people's appearance and/or behavior. YMSL sign names also exhibit less common features, such as the extensive use of generic names, names by (kinship) association, and nonmanual sign names. Crucially, name construction in YMSL seems to follow the cultural naming rules of the surrounding Yucatec Maya community. A total of ninety-seven sign names were collected in the two communities: forty-two signs in Nohkop and fifty-five in Chicán. This article explores how the cultural setting can shape the development of sign names in an emerging sign language. – Name: AbstractInfo Label: Abstractor Group: Ab Data: As Provided – Name: DateEntry Label: Entry Date Group: Date Data: 2024 – Name: AN Label: Accession Number Group: ID Data: EJ1412992 |
| PLink | https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1412992 |
| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Identifiers: – Type: doi Value: 10.1353/sls.2023.a912332 Languages: – Text: English PhysicalDescription: Pagination: PageCount: 40 StartPage: 128 Subjects: – SubjectFull: Sign Language Type: general – SubjectFull: Mayan Languages Type: general – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries Type: general – SubjectFull: Self Concept Type: general – SubjectFull: Language Classification Type: general – SubjectFull: Nonverbal Communication Type: general – SubjectFull: Language Acquisition Type: general – SubjectFull: Cultural Influences Type: general – SubjectFull: Skill Development Type: general – SubjectFull: Deafness Type: general – SubjectFull: Native Language Type: general – SubjectFull: Mexico Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: Sign Names in Yucatec Maya Sign Language Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Olivier Le Guen – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Rossy Kinil Canche – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Merli Collí Hau – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Geli Collí Collí IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 01 Type: published Y: 2023 Identifiers: – Type: issn-print Value: 0302-1475 – Type: issn-electronic Value: 1533-6263 Numbering: – Type: volume Value: 24 – Type: issue Value: 1 Titles: – TitleFull: Sign Language Studies Type: main |
| ResultId | 1 |
