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Mongolian Sign Language ( mn, Монгол дохионы хэл, Mongol dokhiony khel) is a
sign language
Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign l ...
used in
Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...
. ''
Ethnologue'' estimates that there are between 9,000 and 15,000 deaf signers in Mongolia . Mongolian Sign Language is widely used in areas where the
Mongolian diaspora has immigrated. Such locations include California, Houston, and Charleston.
A school for the deaf was established in Mongolia in 1964 by the occupying
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
. This resulted in many similarities between MSL and
Russian Sign Language (RSL) for a time, but the two languages have since developed to be separate and distinct.
Linda Ball, a
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F ...
volunteer in Mongolia, is believed to have created the first dictionary of MSL in 1995. In 2007, another MSL dictionary with 3,000 entries was published by Mongolia's Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science with assistance from
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
.
Notes
Sources
*
*
Further reading
*
*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
Homepageof
Yümjiriin Mönkh-Amgalan at the National University of Mongolia, with a listing of his Mongolian-language papers about MSL
Sign languages
Languages of Mongolia
{{mongolia-stub