Iranian Sign Language (ISL) is the sign language used by
Deaf
Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...
and
hard-of-hearing
Hearing loss is a partial or total inability to hear. Hearing loss may be present at birth or acquired at any time afterwards. Hearing loss may occur in one or both ears. In children, hearing problems can affect the ability to acquire spoken la ...
people in
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. It is a true sign language, unlike the
Baghcheban phonetic hand alphabet, which is a form of
cued speech
Cued speech is a visual system of communication used with and among deaf or hard-of-hearing people. It is a phonemic-based system which makes traditionally spoken languages accessible by using a small number of handshapes, known as cues (repre ...
.
Deaf community in Iran
The estimate of the population of the deaf community in Iran varies between 1.5 and 3 million; Siyavoshi (2017) published that the Iranian Department of Health and Welfare reported 200,000 people self-identifying as deaf when registering for social and medical services. However, no estimate is available for the number of ISL users in the country.
Names
In 2021, the deaf linguist Dr. Ardavan Guity proposed the term Esharani as a new name for the sign language used in Iran, also referred to as Farsi Sign Language, Persian Sign Language, and Zaban Eshareh Irani (ZEI, ).
In 1980, the dictionary "Culture: Farsi Sign Language For Deaf, 1st Volume" was published by the Iranian National Organization for the Welfare of the Deaf, referring to the sign language used by deaf and hard-of-hearing communities in Iran. However
Farsi
Persian (), also known by its endonym Farsi (, ', ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken an ...
(Persian) is not exclusive to Iran, whereas Iranian Signed Language, based on Guity's work, is exclusive to Iran. Additionally, Persian is not the only language spoken in Iran. In 1984, a university group based in
Tehran
Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
published the first of four editions of "Dictionary of Farsi Sign Language: Standardized Signs", although the English cover used the title "Persian Sign Language Collection for the Deaf", and used the terms Farsi Language and Persian Sign Language interchangeably. It was not until 1999 that the phrase Iranian Sign Language was used in a Master's thesis. However, the thesis was written by a hearing author without involvement from the deaf community in Iran.
In 2014, Guity, Abbas Behmanesh, and Jodie Novak created a video describing the linguistic properties of Zaban Eshareh Irani, the transliteration of the Persian phrase meaning Iranian Sign Language. Following the video's release, the term Zaban Eshareh Irani gained traction in social media use, particularly among deaf communities in ethnic groups, such as
Gilaks,
Kurds ug:كۇردلار
Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Ira ...
, and
Baloch people
The Baloch or Baluch ( bal, بلۏچ, Balòc) are an Iranian people who live mainly in the Balochistan region, located at the southeasternmost edge of the Iranian plateau, encompassing the countries of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. There ...
whose primary language is not Farsi and felt alienated from terms such as Farsi Sign Language.
[Guity, Ardavan (April 2022). Esharani Grammatical Sketch: An Initial Description of the Lexicon and Grammar (PhD thesis). Gallaudet University.] However ZEI was also problematic, as Persian does not have capitalization or acronyms. Consequently, Guity and Dr. Sara Siyavoshi, a hearing linguist from Iran, proposed the name ''Esharani'', derived from the Persian morpheme ''eshar'' (sign), ''ran'' (Iran), and the suffix -''i'', commonly used for language names in Persian. The sign for Esharani itself is derived from the combination of the signs for "Iran" and "sign", where the non-dominant hand is in the five handshape and the dominant hand moves in a spiral motion with the thumb out over the palm of the non-dominant hand. However the acceptability of the name is still under discussion among the deaf communities in Iran.
See also
*
Qahveh Khaneh Sign Language
References
Scholarly literature
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External links
About.com: Deaf Community - IranLinguistic Research and Zaban Eshareh Irani - video by Behmanesh, Guity, and Novak in Esharani*
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Sign languages
Languages of Iran
Sign languages of Iran