گونه کرمانشاهی زبان اشاره ایرانی و تفاوت آن با گونه تهرانی (مقاله علمی وزارت علوم)
درجه علمی: نشریه علمی (وزارت علوم)
آرشیو
چکیده
زبان اشاره ایرانی، زبان اشاره ی جامعه ی ناشنوای ایران است. این زبان دارای گونه های متفاوتی است. در بعضی استان ها این تفاوت گونه بیشتر و در بعضی دیگر کمتر است. گونه ی کرمانشاهی زبان اشاره ایرانی تا کنون مورد مطالعه قرار نگرفته است. مطالعه ی حاضر مستخرج از یک پروژه ی مستند سازی زبان اشاره ایرانی بود که با حمایت موسسه ی مستندسازی زبان های در معرض خطر انجام شد. تعداد ناشنوایان شرکت کننده در این مطالعه 54 نفر بود. در طول جلسات، از شرکت کنندگان خواسته میشد که حروف الفبای دستی را تولید کنند، کلماتی را هجی دستی کنند، داستان فیلم کوتاهی را برای یکدیگر بازگو کنند و گفتگوهای هدایت شده داشته باشند. نتایج این پژوهش نشان داد که به طور کلی گونه ی کرمانشاهی زبان اشاره ی ایرانی برای ناشنوایان مناطق دیگر ایران به راحتی قابل درک است و تفاوت این گونه به حدی نیست که مانع ارتباط متقابل شود. با این حال پس از این پژوهش به تفاوت-های جزئی میان گونه های رایج زبان اشاره ایرانی که تا کنون مطالعه شده اند و گونه رایج در کرمانشاه پی بُردیم.The Kermanshahi Variety of Iranian Sign Language and Its Differences from the Tehrani Variety
Iranian Sign Language serving as the primary means of communication within the deaf community of Iran displays some regional differences. In some regions, these differences are more pronounced in some regions and less so in others. As of now, there has been no examination or study conducted on Iranian Sign Language in Kermanshah. This study stems from a project aimed at documenting Iranian Sign Language, supported by the Endangered Language Documentation Program. The study enlisted the participation of 54 individuals from the local deaf community in Kermanshah. During the sessions, the participants were asked to produce the manual alphabet signs, fingerspell some words, retell stories, and go through guided conversations. The analysis of the findings revealed that, on the whole, the Kermanshah variant of Iranian Sign Language remains readily intelligible to deaf individuals from other regions of Iran, with differences not significant enough to impede mutual understanding. Nonetheless, subtle distinctions between the Kermanshah variant and more widely studied forms of Iranian Sign Language were noted. Introduction Iranian Sign Language[1] [2] is an independent language used by the Deaf community in Iran, and contrary to common belief, it is not a variety of Persian. This language has received little attention in linguistic research and lacks official support—even within Deaf families. Linguists disagree on whether there is only one sign language in Iran or multiple regional varieties. The present study aims to examine the sign language used in Kermanshah and analyze its data using ELAN software, in order to determine whether this variety is independent of the commonly used Iranian Sign Language. Another focus of this research is the variation found in the Baghcheban manual alphabet, which is used for fingerspelling specific words. This alphabet, which dates back nearly a century, is currently used in different forms across various regions of Iran due to changes in Deaf education systems. Literature Review Prior to the 2000s, no detailed linguistic studies had been conducted on Iranian Sign Language, and most available resources focused on its standardization rather than on accurately describing its use within the Deaf community. Since the 2000s, younger researchers—such as Siyavoshi—began exploring the morphology, syntax, phonology, and semantics of Iranian Sign Language (Siyavoshi, 2009; Siyavoshi, 2019; Siyavoshi, 2023). In recent years, educational books and field-based studies have also emerged, including Guity’s doctoral dissertation (2022), which documented sign language data from six cities across Iran. The present study represents the first attempt to document and analyze the sign language used by Deaf individuals in Kermanshah. Methodology Data collection in this study followed the framework proposed by Crasborn and Zwitserlood (2008). The authors received specialized training in sign language documentation at international academic centers, including Leibniz Center for Linguistics and Radboud University in the Netherlands, and collaborated with experienced researchers and Deaf linguists such as Ardavan Guity. Ethical principles were strictly observed, including obtaining informed consent, clearly explaining the research goals in sign language, and ensuring the active involvement of Deaf participants throughout all stages of the project. At the outset, a preliminary workshop was held in which Deaf community members were informed of the study’s purpose. A Deaf research assistant was selected based on certain criteria such as fluency in sign language and strong community ties. In total, 54 participants took part in the study, across two phases—before and after the COVID-19 pandemic—with balanced representation in terms of gender and age groups. Participants were filmed performing four linguistic tasks: Fingerspelling the manual alphabet and Persian words; Producing signs for 100 images; Retelling the stories of two silent films ("The Pear Story" and "The Other Pair"); Going through natural guided conversations on everyday topics. A professional camera was used for recording, and careful attention was paid to scene setup and motion capture. The data were then annotated using ELAN software. The tasks of translation and glossing were distributed among team members. Finally, the data and accompanying metadata were uploaded to the archive of the Endangered Languages Archive. Results A general overview of the data collected in this study shows that the Kermanshah variety of Iranian Sign Language is, overall, intelligible to Deaf individuals from other regions of the country, and that the differences are not substantial enough to hinder mutual understanding. However, the findings reveal some minor differences between the Kermanshah variety and the other dialects of Iranian Sign Language that have been studied to date. The first set of differences concerns specific lexical items. Some signs used in the Kermanshah variety differ from those commonly used in Tehran (which has been the most extensively studied), including the signs for /moallem/ ‘teacher’, /mard/ ‘man’, /axbār/ ‘news’, /rustā/ ‘village’, /taqallob/ ‘cheating’, /emtehān/ ‘exam’, /qatār/ ‘train’, and /riyāzi/ ‘mathematics’. In addition to lexical differences, several handshapes in the manual alphabet used in Kermanshah variety differ from those in the Tehran variety. These include the letters [t], [tʃ], [d], [z], [ʒ], [f], and [k]. Interestingly, in the Kermanshah Deaf community, multiple variants exist for some letters of the manual alphabet. A likely reason for this is the comparatively limited access of Deaf individuals in Kermanshah to formal Deaf education, especially when compared to their peers in Tehran. Due to receiving less instruction in the manual alphabet (Baghcheban), they have likely learned these signs informally from other Deaf individuals—naturally resulting in more variation. It was also observed that the participants unfamiliar with the signs for less frequently used Persian letters produced the mentioned signs through speculation which further indicates their lack of access to formal sign language education. A third difference is found in the mouth patterns accompanying certain signs in the Kermanshah variety, which differ from those seen in the Tehran variety. Our hypothesis is that these variations may be influenced by the signers’ native spoken language—Kurdish. Thus, these distinctive mouth patterns may reflect features of Kurdish phonology manifesting in sign production. Conclusion One of the main objectives of this study was to determine whether the sign language used in Kermanshah should be considered an independent variety of Iranian Sign Language. The answer is no; while the Kermanshah variety exhibits minor differences from the more commonly used variety of Iranian Sign Language, communication between the users of the two varieties remains effective and intelligible. The most significant differences were observed at the level of the manual alphabet, where up to five different signs were found for a single letter. This difference is largely due to the diminishing role of formal sign language instruction in Deaf education. Educational policies have gradually phased out sign language teaching in schools for the Deaf, contributing to regional variation in fingerspelling practices. Another key outcome of this research is the documented corpus of the Kermanshah sign language. This resource is now available for future research at www.elararchive.org. Iranian Sign Language is also referred to as Zaban Eshareh Irani (ZEI).
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