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Mehek Sign Language is either
home sign Home sign (or kitchen sign) is a gestural communication system, often invented spontaneously by a deaf child who lacks accessible linguistic input. Home sign systems often arise in families where a deaf child is raised by hearing parents and is iso ...
or a possible incipient
village sign language A village sign language, or village sign, also known as a shared sign language, is a local indigenous sign language used by both deaf and hearing in an area with a high incidence of congenital deafness. Meir ''et al.'' define a village sign langua ...
of the
Mehek people Mehek is a Tama language spoken by about 6300 people in a somewhat mountainous area along the southern base of the Torricelli Mountains in northwestern Papua New Guinea. Mehek is spoken in six villages of Sandaun Province: Nuku, Yiminum, Mansuk ...
of northwestern
Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
. It is used by at least two deaf people – one in each of two different communities – and their family and friends, but not by the community as a whole. There are reported to be about 100 signers, but statements of numbers this high are not likely to be accurate. There appear to be many Mehek families with deaf members. Signs are not standardized, and vary significantly between deaf individuals, with many signs being ''ad hoc''. This suggests multiple instances of home sign and perhaps a contact pidgin rather than a coherent language. Other than pointing and holding a flat hand above the ground to indicate various people's heights, Hatfield (2016) found only thirty sign that were consistent between utterances and between signers, and most of these are highly
mimetic Mimesis (; grc, μίμησις, ''mīmēsis'') is a term used in literary criticism and philosophy that carries a wide range of meanings, including ''imitatio'', imitation, nonsensuous similarity, receptivity, representation, mimicry, the act ...
, some full-body signs, rather than simply iconic hand signs as in developed sign languages. One sign even involves touch the hands with the feet. Signing involves a great deal of pointing and repetition, and the repetition "often takes a variety of forms". However, the system does include an apparent
topic-comment In linguistics, the topic, or theme, of a sentence is what is being talked about, and the comment (rheme or focus) is what is being said about the topic. This division into old vs. new content is called information structure. It is generally a ...
construction, with a "preparatory clause" that sets the stage for what will be described, unlike what is found in spoken Mehek. For example, for 'a man and a woman fought', the signer will indicate the relative heights of the participants before signing 'man' (pat shoulder), 'woman' (pat head or make fists for breasts) and 'fight' (slap one's face).Adam Hatfield (2016)
''A grammar of Mehek''
p. 400–404. PhD dissertation, State University of New York, Buffalo.


See also

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Mehek language Mehek is a Tama language spoken by about 6300 people in a somewhat mountainous area along the southern base of the Torricelli Mountains in northwestern Papua New Guinea. Mehek is spoken in six villages of Sandaun Province: Nuku, Yiminum, Mansuku, ...
*
Wanib Sign Language Wanib Sign Language is a reported sign language, possibly a village sign language, in a Heyo-speaking community of Papua New Guinea. It's spoken just to the west of Mehek Sign Language Mehek Sign Language is either home sign or a possible inc ...


References

Village sign languages Sign languages of Papua New Guinea Home sign Languages attested from the 2010s {{PapuaNewGuinea-stub