ABSA Research Group (1987) A Dictionary of Sign Language (Focus on Karachi). Karachi: Anjuman Behbood-e-Samat-e-Atfal. xii + 119 + xvi pp.
English, Urdu & Sign, shown in line drawings. Produced with Nordic technical assistance.
AFZAL, Shamim (1979) The deaf and mute from infancy to rehabilitation. In: PAKISTAN, Ministry of Health & Social Welfare, Report of the National Workshop on "Welfare and Development of the Handicapped Child", Islamabad, Pakistan, 22-23 Oct. 1979, 18-25. Islamabad: Govt of Pakistan, with UNICEF. ix + 121 pages.
Paper by the senior trainer of teachers for deaf children in Pakistan, strongly advocating the oral approach. She regrets that "The teachers are trained in the oral method (i.e., teaching of speech) but they adopt sigh [sic] language and teach through simultaneous medium of instruction i.e. through speech and sighs at the same time. this is so because it is easier for the teacher to learn sigh language from the deaf child than to make him learn speech." (p.20) (It may be assumed that the use of 'sigh' for 'sign' in this paragraph is a persistent printing error!)
AHMED, Syed Iftikhar (1989) Pakistan Sign Language. Islamabad: Sir Syed Deaf Association. 255 pp.
Sign language lexicon by photography, of usage in northern Pakistan (see ABSA, 1987, for Karachi usage).
ANTIA, Shirin D., (1979) Education of the hearing impaired in India: a survey. American Annals of the Deaf 124: 785-789.
Questionnaire Survey among ten schools, serving some 1,000 deaf children. Five schools were visited personally. Oral methods of teaching predominated, but four schools are reported to make some use of manual methods or 'natural gesture'. The authors quote a finding by CROSS (1977) q.v., that "personnel in the schools for the deaf in India responded negatively to the use of sign language."
BARAKAT, Robert A. (1973) Arabic gestures. J. Popular Culture 6: 749-793.
Detailed discussion and references (749-771), followed by verbal description of each of 247 Arabic gestures (772-787), and small photographs of the author making most of these gestures (790-793). (Barakat notes on p. 769 his awareness of the limitations of these photographs). This seems to have been one of the earliest substantial published studies of gesture in the modern Middle East. (Cf. GOLDZIHER, NWYIA, BOUSQUET, above).
BOYD, Amy (1982) Training teachers for hearing impaired children. In: Prem Victor & Armin Loewe (eds) All India Workshop for Teachers and Parents of Hearing Impaired Children. Selected Papers, 233-236. New Delhi: Max Mueller Bhavan.
Outlines four types of training for teachers of the deaf in Tamil Nadu, and advocates various improvements.
CHANDRAMOHAN, Raji (1982) My education. In: Prem Victor & Armin Loewe (eds) All India Workshop for Teachers and Parents of Hearing Impaired Children. Selected Papers, 243-244. New Delhi: Max Mueller Bhavan.
Personal account of her education, by a hearing impaired woman who went to ordinary schools in India and UK.
CRAWFORD, J. & OTTINGER, P. (1980) The sign language dimension of Total Communication for India. Hearing Aid Journal [New Delhi] 2 (2) 11-18.
CROSS, J. (1977) Toward a standardized sign language for India. Gallaudet Today 8 (1) 26-29.
See note under ANTIA, above.
CULSHAW, Murray (1983) It Will Soon Be Dark... The situation of the disabled in India. Delhi: Lithouse Publications. xx + 143 pp.
pp. 80-87 concern "Hard of Hearing", with a discussion of sign languages, the variety of approaches among their advocates, and some current efforts to promote them, (pp. 83-85). "This group believes that an Indian sign language should be taught in schools. However, there is no standard approach to sign language. In some schools, the English finger spelling method with two hands is taught, in others, the American one handed system is taught, in others, the Indian sign language is taught - there are several of these based on regional and cultural variations - and in some schools , there is a finger spelling system related to Indian languages. This variety results in considerable confusion." (Based on various visits; also discussions with senior people at the All India Federation of the Deaf, which was then running various vocational training schemes, and publishing the bi-monthly magazine Mook-dhwani.)
DAVID, J.S. (1987) Sri Lanka. In: John V. VAN CLEVE (ed) Gallaudet Encyclopedia of Deaf People and Deafness, III: 237-241. New York: McGraw-Hill, 3 vols.
Reviews various aspects of service development since 1912, and the languages used in school. "By 1949, the pure oral system had been replaced by the combined method, which uses lipreading and signs; today every school uses this method. However, no school debars the use of signs by the children, and no school teaches formal signs; new children learn the signs from their peers. David notes that the signs thus passed on in each school are "not uniform, though there may be similarities".
DAVID, J.S. (1994) Deaf Awareness Program: a suggestion. In: ERTING, C. et al. (eds) The Deaf Way (q.v.) 702-705.
Describes the unintentionally adverse family and social environment in which deaf children usually grow up in the north of Sri Lanka. Proposes that the cultural difference of deaf people should figure in the awareness curriculum which hearing children already are taught, on cultural and linguistic differences in society.
DESHMUKH, Dilip (1994) The status of sign language in deaf education in India. Signpost. Newsletter of the International Sign Language Association 7 (1) 49-52.
Briefly gives some data returned by 110 Indian schools for the deaf (35% response rate) to a mailed survey c. 1992, concerning deaf education, and in particular the use of sign language. Responses suggested that while a majority of the schools were using oral teaching methods, and there were many misconceptions about sign language, and none used an exclusively signing approach, nevertheless over 90% of students and teachers claimed to make some use of sign language, and there was some openness to an increasing use of sign.
DESHMUKH, D. (1997) Sign Language and Bilingualism in Deaf Education. Ichalkaranj, India: Deaf Foundation.
DESHMUKH, D. (1998) Sign language and bilingualism in deaf education. In: S.P. IMMANUEL et al (eds) Listening to Sounds and Signs (q.v.) 55-63.
Argues for a more sophisticated policy of bilingual education, based on studies of real-life outcomes.
DHALEE, Stephen P. (1994) Discrimination against deaf people in Bangladesh. In: ERTING, C. et al. (eds) The Deaf Way (q.v.) 788-790.
Focuses on negative attitudes and lack of appropriate services for deaf Bangladeshis.
ERTING, C.J., JOHNSON, R.C., SMITH, D.L. & SNIDER, B.D. (eds) (1994) The Deaf Way. Perspectives from the International Conference on Deaf Culture. Washington DC: Gallaudet UP. xxxv + 907 pp.
(See annotations under DAVID, DHALEE, JOSHI, SHAMSHUDIN, VASISHTA & SETHNA).
FRASER, B.C. (1987) Education for Deaf Children in Pakistan. Report of visit to Pakistan, 28th December, 1986, to 10th January, 1987. Unpublished report, British Council, London. 16 pp.
Unusually detailed and perceptive comments by a British teacher trainer, after visits to nine schools and discussions at local and national level. "In all schools visited speech and lip-reading were the practised mode of communication whilst we were in the classroom. ... Discussions are under way to establish some sort of standardized signing system. This seems to be being done without reference to the adult deaf community. ... R.B. established links with an association of deaf men in Rawalpindi and together we met two of these people. It was very evident that a thriving and dynamic sign language existed and that it was unlikely to be influenced by any committee invented codes..." (p.13)
FURUTA, Hiroko (1997) Establishment of early intervention programs for hearing impaired children: some reflections from Sri Lanka. Hearing International 6 (2) 6.
FURUTA, H. & YOSHINO, T. (1998) The present situation of the use of hearing aids in rural areas of Sri Lanka: problems and future prospects. International J. Rehabilitation Research 21: 103-108.
Reports some practical problems in hearing aid use among 37 children (aged 5 to 18 years) in the year after the children's hearing impairment was assessed and hearing aids prescribed. Some children and families had been supported by local community workers. In practice, 22 were using their aids, but there were considerable problems about ear moulds, spare parts and batteries.
GHARAPURE, Prabha (1973) Titiksha [Marathi]. 423 pp.
[Case studies on deaf Indian children and their education. (Not verified)]
GOPALAKRISHNAN, V. (1998) Sign Language. A deaf person's hopes and vision for the future. In: S.P. IMMANUEL et al (eds) Listening to Sounds and Signs (q.v.) 81-86.
While recognising that sign language is "bound to have some regional variations and dialects", because signs are used in everyday life and "life depends upon customs, and customs vary from place to place", Gopalakrishnan nonetheless believes that diversity in India has "retarded the growth and development of sign language", not least by confusing non-users (p. 82). As in some other countries, "sign language has been codified, researched and recorded" (and perhaps equating this with uniformity in practice), he advocates moves "towards a common Indian sign language" (p. 85); also towards "evolving signs for grammatical terms ... because at present no such signs exist (due to little emphasis on teaching grammar to the deaf through sign)" (p. 84).
GUPTA, K.P. (1982) Reaction of educators of the deaf on integration of the deaf. In: Prem Victor & Armin Loewe (eds) All India Workshop for Teachers and Parents of Hearing Impaired Children. Selected Papers, 190-194. New Delhi: Max Mueller Bhavan.
Given the prevailing educational conditions in India in the 1980s, Mr Gupta doubted whether integration of deaf children in ordinary schools could be successful.
HABIBULLAH, S.M. (1975) Education of the hearing handicapped. In: Proceedings of the First Conference on the Disabled: "The Handicapped - A Challenge to Action", Karachi, 1975, 117-120. Karachi: Evaluation & Research Unit, Directorate Social Welfare, Government of Sind. x + 191 pages (incl. appendices)
At Pakistan's first major conference on disability, this speaker gave his "Fundamental Principles", which began: "1. All the Deaf & Dumb children cannot learn speech." [But speech should be taught to those who could learn it.] "2. Sign Language must be taught to all those students who fail to learn speech even after very best efforts. 3. Students who pick up speech and learn language should not be allowed gesticulations." Though given a very subordinate and regretted place, this was one of the earliest published declarations in Pakistan that Sign Language must have some place in education of deaf children.
HADADIAN, Azar (1996) History of deaf education in Iran. In: R. Fischer & T. Vollhaber, with H. Zienert (eds) Collage: works on international deaf history, 117-123. Hamburg: Signum.
Mainly an account of the work of the kindergarten teacher Jabar Baghcheban (1885-1966), who began Iran's first formal educational work for deaf children in 1924 at Tabriz and who later founded a school at Teheran, and contributed original methods and approaches to teaching deaf children.
HAMID, Rajaa (1977) The welfare of the deaf and dumb in Iraq. Proceedings of the International Congress of the Deaf, Tokyo 1975, pp. 135-36. Tokyo: Organizing Committee.
HARRIS, N.D.C. & MUSTAFA, N. (1986) Teaching hearing-impaired children in Iraq using a new teaching method. Programmed Learning and Educational Technology 23: 159-165.
Briefly describes the state of schooling for hearing impaired children in Baghdad in the mid-1980s. A resource-based learning approach resulted in improved language use.
HASSO, M.H. (1985) The development of services for deaf children in Iraq. In: I.G. TAYLOR (ed) The Education of the Deaf. Current Perspectives, vol. 4, 2012-17. London: Croom Helm.
IMMANUEL, S. Prabakar, KOENIG, Claudia, & TESNI, Sian (eds) (1998) Listening to Sounds and Signs. Trends in deaf education and communication. Bangalore: Christoffel-Blindenmission, and Books for Change. vi + 214 pp. isbn 81-87380-10-1
Compilation of 19 very varied chapters on modern South Asian deafness, hearing impairment, deaf-blindness, and education and communication methods and trends. Contributions are made by deaf service users, parents, and by both hearing and deaf professionals. Some care has been taken to present the more attractive side of each approach, along with possible drawbacks; thus "it cannot be categorically stated that 'Integrated Education' is better than 'Deaf Schools' or vice versa. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages" (p. 164, by a deaf foreign professional working in India). The range of expressed viewpoints, e.g. from "Deafness is primarily an enormous language problem" (p. 195, Indian hearing professional), to "The problem of the deaf is not their lack of hearing, but a lack of understanding by the hearing people that the deaf have a language" (p. 61, Indian hearing professional), is remarkable within one book. Among 22 authors of chapters, 17 are South Asians. The 46 items listed in the Bibliography (pp. 211-212) are entirely by European or American authors, and a similar domination occurs in the references in some, but not all, chapters. The six pages (118-123) on teaching deaf-blind children to eat with knife, fork and spoon suggest a curious cultural agenda. (See also notes under DESHMUKH, GOPALAKRISHNAN, TESNI).
IRAN. Islamic Republic of Iran Welfare Organisation (ed.) (1989) Persian Sign Language Collection. For the Deaf. Education & Research Office, Rehabil. Research Group. 229 pp.
JEPSON, Jill (1991) Urban and rural sign language in India. Language in Society 20: 37-57.
Suggests that urban sign language is a probably an indigenous, middle-class, syntactically quite complex phenomenon with a high degree of uniformity across India, developing fairly recently. (Cf. GOPALAKRISHNAN, above). Rural signing, by contrast, is syntactically and lexically limited, "employs iconicity for the large majority of signs", and depends to a large extent on common gestures. Each form of communication is fairly well adapted to the requirements of its milieu. (Jepson makes a few historical comments).
JEPSON, J. (1991) Two sign languages in a single village in India. Sign Language Studies 20 (70) 47-59.
Brief description and analysis contrasting the signing systems of two prelingually deaf young men observed in rural India. 'Mohan' is well integrated with family and friends, with whom he communicates frequently, using a "positively structured" language having some degree of syntactical complexity; but with people outside that circle he has some difficulties and resorts more often to iconic gestures. 'Ramesh', who drifted to the village alone as a child, and who has no family or intimates, nonetheless has fairly successful interactions with many people while earning his bread running errands. His system is mostly iconic and pantomimic, using much space and most of his body, with little or no syntax.
JEPSON, J. (1991) Some aspects of the deaf experience in India. Sign Language Studies 20 (73) : 453-459.
Based on an unstructured sample of deaf people in rural and urban fieldwork, Jepson tentatively describes some apparent stages in the evolution of family and community perceptions and attitudes, e.g. shock; cure-shopping; acceptance that deafness is incurable, with transition to a view of it as 'natural' (prakritic); concurrent adjustments in religious interpretations. Such an evolution was not, however, inevitable.
JOB, Anand & RAMAN, R. (1991) Tinnitus, quackery and folklore. Tropical Doctor 21 (3) 122.
Note on a remedy for tinnitus sometimes employed by traditional healers in rural India, based on the sufferers' belief that tinnitus is caused by a live insect in the ear. A reed stalk is inserted into the ear, and the practitioner supposedly sucks the insect out. A quack may first conceal some insects in his mouth, and when these are spat out, the patient is convinced that progress has been made. However, the practice may cause external otitis, or perforation of the ear drum.
JOSHI, Ragav Bir (1991) Nepal: a paradise for the deaf? Sign Language Studies 71: 161-168. (A version of this paper appeared also in ERTING, C. et al. (eds) The Deaf Way (q.v.) 69-74.)
Presents a non-idyllic picture of life for deaf Nepalis, with few educational or vocational opportunities, and widespread negative attitudes. A Nepali sign dictionary began to be prepared in the later 1980s (see ROSS et al.), and deaf clubs were beginning to be active in the cities.
KAPUR, Y.P. (1976) Communication for the hearing-handicapped people in India. In: H.J. OYER (ed) Communication for the Hearing Handicapped. An international perspective, 447-470. Baltimore: University Park Press.
Detailed overview of professional concerns.
KARNATH, Pratibha (1991) Comments on issues relating to professional training and development of alternate and augmentative communication system in India. Indian J. Disability and Rehabilitation 5 (1) 73-77.
Notes (p. 75) that the very weak development of alternate and augmentative communication systems in India arose from the fact that the field of speech-language pathology developed at a time "when oralism reigned supreme and even the use of incidental gestures and signs by the hard of hearing was anathema to the speech and hearing specialist. Therapists and parents forbade the use of gestures and signs..." (in the belief that they would cause deaf children to avoid the difficult work of acquiring speech).
LEE, Soo Choo (1999) A Project for Deaf People in Afghanistan. [Unpublished, 3 pages.] PO Box 477, Peshawar, Pakistan.
Describes activities of a British aid organisation providing educational and social resources for deaf people in Eastern Afghanistan. "The first book of Jalalabad regional sign language, recorded by deaf people was published in 1995 with 620 signs. A revised edition came out in 1998 with 1200 signs." (See also Zaban Ishara, below).
LOEWE, Armin (1993) Personal experiences in the early identification, early diagnosis, and early educational management of hearing loss in children in partnership between Federal Republic of Germany and India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. International J. Special Education 8: 46-54.
Review of some 12 years' activities by an international advisor, and reflections on the many difficulties encountered while trying to balance the offer of modern technology and oral teaching against the local cultural traditions and the practical realities in countries with very large rural populations living in great economic poverty.
MATANI, Pushpa (ed) [1975] All India Directory of Welfare Agencies for the Deaf. 228 + vii pp. New Delhi: National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development.
MILES, M. (1984) Deafness in rural Asia. Volta Review 86: 274-281.
Describes some of the mismatch between the realities of rural Asian deafness and the well-intentioned technological solutions imported from urban Europe.
MILES, M. (1985) Children with Disabilities in Ordinary Schools: an action study of non-designed educational integration in Pakistan. Peshawar: Mental Health Centre, for National Council of Social Welfare, Government of Pakistan. iv + 81 pp.
In a survey of 43,416 pupils in 103 ordinary urban primary and secondary schools in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, 825 (1.9%) were pointed out by teachers (without special training or sensitization) as having disabilities. The hearing of 63 children had sufficient impairment to be noticeable without formal tests. Follow-up report by a social worker (Yasmin Fazal) mentioned two of these children, studying in an ordinary school with no special measures to help them. (These two are not necessarily typical; but they do illustrate the need for flexibility of policies).
p. 68. "S.U. is a student of 7th class, aged fourteen years. He is deaf and unable to speak. He has been studying in this school for 7 years but he cannot write his name and father's name. It is difficult for him to write but it is not impossible. He belongs to a poor family. So he should take admission in any technical Institution so that he may be able to support himself in future. We are trying to contact his parent to discuss this issue."
p. 69. "Y.K. has speech defect and a mild hearing impairment and because of absence of trained teachers he was neglected. Therefore it was necessary for him to join the Deaf School. I sent him to that school after meeting with his parents and motivating them. He was a poor boy and his conveyance and fee was free at the previous school, therefore his parents did not agree to send him to another school because they could not bear the expense. But after I told them that the fee and conveyance will be free they agreed and we admitted the child in the Deaf School. But after a few days he came back to the previous school because he could not adjust himself."
AL-MUSLAT, Zaid Abdullah (1999) The extent and kind of educational services for the deaf in Saudi Arabia. In: H. William BRELJE (ed) Global Perspectives on the Education of the Deaf in Selected Countries, pp. 323-342. Hillsboro, Oregon: Butte. x + 423 pp.
Includes a short account of developments since the first educational institutions for deaf and hard of hearing children opened in Saudi Arabia in 1964. (The book also has chapters on Egypt, Israel, Lebanon).
NARASIMHAM, R. (1995) Tools through Signs. Bombay.
NASEOH [1978-80] Talking Hands. Sign Language Book. Bombay: National Society for Equal Opportunities for the Handicapped.
Sign vocabulary dictionary of "about 2,500 words and word parts (the grammatical elements of language)". The signs are shown in simple line drawings, often giving initial and final finger/hand positions with direction arrows, labelled in English, Hindi, Marathi and Gujerati. Produced during a study project on Total Communication (see VACHA et al., below).
NISE National Institute of Special Education (1994) Pakistani Sign Language, Based on Primary School Course Vocabulary. Second Handbook for Teachers, Parents and Hearing Impaired Persons. Islamabad.
O'CONNOR, Garry (1988) The Mahabharata. Peter Brook's epic in the making. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 159 pp.
Profusely illustrated book of the drama and film. O'Connor saw the Kathakali version of the Mahabharata, and wrote (pp. 55-56):
"Most of all the hand gestures had impressed me: heightened by silver nail-tips the hands wove, flashed and echoed every form of human and divine state. Imitative, descriptive and symbolic in turn..."
O'Connor also quoted (p. 56) from the director Peter Brook's impressions of the river of India life and creativity:
"Whatever the aspect of human experience, the Indian has indefatigably explored every possibility. If it is that most humble and most amazing of human instruments, a finger, everything that a finger can do has been explored and codified. If it is a word, a breath, a limb, a sound, a note - or a stone or a colour of a cloth - all its aspects, practical artistic and spiritual, have been investigated and linked together. The line between performance and ceremony is hard to draw, and we witnessed many events that took us close to Vedic times, or close to the energy that is uniquely Indian."
PAKISTAN. National Institute of Special Education (1991) Pakistan Sign Language, with Regional Differences. Islamabad: NISE.
PARASNIS, Ila, SAMAR, Vincent J. & MANDKE, Kalyani (1996) Deaf adults' attitudes toward career choice for deaf and hearing people in India. American Annals of the Deaf, 333-339.
Deaf adults at Pune compared and commented on a list of professions, from the point of view of suitability for deaf people. In an endnote (headed 'Footnotes') the authors remark, "Whether deaf people in India have many distinct sign languages or a common underlying sign language with many distinct dialectical variations is not known. This is partly because the sign languages used by the deaf communities in India have yet not been systematically documented and studied."
PATIL, Shilpa & GOPINATH, C.Y. (2000) Exploring the Sexual Vulnerability of Urban Deaf Indians. Mumbai: Project Signpost. 42 pp.
Exploratory two-year study among groups of adults and young people in Deaf organisations at Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai, by hearing researchers, using questionnaires and open-ended discussions, with interpreters and facilitators. The authors are correctly cautious about the wider applicability of their results; yet the study does provide some credible insights into the family dynamics, communication problems and social vulnerability ordinarily experienced by deaf people, and the additional difficulties faced in providing/receiving appropriate sex education and awareness.
REHMAN, Farhat (transl.) (1990) Mehroom-e-Samat Bachoon Aur Nojawano Kay Liye Khusoosi Taleem. Peshawar: Mental Health Centre. 104 pp. (Urdu version of: CENTRE FOR TOTAL COMMUNICATION, Copenhagen (1987) Education for Deaf Children and Young People. Paris: UNESCO. 84 pp.)
Balanced approach between various schools of thought on education for deaf children.
ROSS, P., DEVKOTA, N. & MASKEY, D. (1989) Nepali Sign Language Dictionary. Kathmandu: Welfare Society for the Deaf.
SHAMSHUDIN, Anwar (1994) Deaf culture in Pakistan. In: ERTING, C. et al. (eds) The Deaf Way (q.v.), 75-77.
Mostly on the poverty, traditional cultural barriers, and privations of deaf children and adults. "Members of the older generation in our country are orthodox in their views and consider deafness a taboo and a curse from heaven". Brief mention of efforts to provide a sign language dictionary (see ABSA, above).
SPARHAWK, C.M. (1978) Contrastive-identificational features of Persian gesture. Semiotica 24 (1-2) 49-86.
Analysis and diagrammatic representation of features of signed communication, based on detailed studies with Persian informants.
TAYLOR, Irene (1997) Buddhas in Disguise, Deaf People in Nepal. San Diego: DawnSign. vi + 151 isbn 0-915035-59-6.
Profusely illustrated with black/white and colour photographs. The hearing author, whose parents are deaf, stayed for 3 years in Nepal and gives a detailed picture of many deaf and hearing impaired people whom she met and communicated with in ASL and Nepali SL, and who introduced her to their lives and cultures. (Taylor correctly acknowledges some difficulties in interpreting what she saw). Mentions (p. 19) a village where "One in four of their village children becomes deaf..." pp. 131-148 concern the Kathmandu Association of the Deaf and the drive for modern education, opportunities, and Nepali Sign Language. Tailoring is becoming a common profession for deaf adults. Some information appears about deaf Tibetans.
TESNI, Sian (1998) Service provision for children with deafness and hearing impairment in South India and Sri Lanka. In: S.P. IMMANUEL et al (eds) Listening to Sounds and Signs (q.v.) 177-192.
Underlines the historical imbalance introduced by well-intentioned expatriate advisors. "On several visits to institutions of the deaf and hearing impaired, headteachers have declared to the author that the school only practised the oral method. However, after informal and open discussions with key members of the staff regarding the different methodologies, the above declaration invariably changed to: "We instructed the teachers not to sign today because of the overseas expert visiting our school. We thought that all the best schools for the deaf in the UK use the oral approach. In fact, our teachers use sign language. We do not have a formal sign language, only what we use in gestures and what we have learnt from the children. The children are always signing to each other." (p. 181) (Cf. AFZAL, 1979, above; and DESHMUKH, 1994).
VACHA, B., GHATE, R., BANERJI, M., NANAVATI, B. & GOKHALE, M. (1982) Report on Total Communication Research. Bombay: National Socy for Equal Opportunities for the Handicapped. vi + 42 pp.
Mostly expounds the merits of 'Total Communication' in an attempt to bridge the gap between Oral and Manual approaches. "Sign language is commonly used by the deaf and they are perfectly at home with it. The contrived sign language is an attempt to make the sign language more like the spoken language, making use of the ability of the deaf to use signs easily. But it must be remembered that sign language cannot become an educational object by itself. It should remain an aid or tool for the development of language." (p.16) Reports briefly on the negative attitude towards signing, among deaf students who have been 'failures' in oral schools; and the slow change of view in a few case studies where students benefitted by learning to sign. "At first Mandeep was reluctant to use signs but seeing that everybody used them at the Centre, he gradually began to lose his inhibitions, at least in school." (p.33) Some parents continued to believe that signing would impede speech development, while older deaf students "who are very keen on signs are eager to form a more effective deaf community to lobby for their needs." (p.22)
VASISHTA, Madan M. & SETHNA, Meher (1994) Clubs for deaf people in India. In: ERTING, C. et al. (eds) The Deaf Way (q.v.) 532-534.
Analyses data from 19 Deaf Clubs responding to a mailed survey questionnaire, giving a broad picture of social and leisure activities of some modern, urban, deaf Indians.
VASISHTA, M.M., WOODWARD, James, & DE SANTIS, Susan (1981) An Introduction to Indian Sign Language: Focus on Delhi. New Delhi: All India Federation of the Deaf.
VASISHTA, M., WOODWARD, J. & DE SANTIS, S. (1985) An Introduction to the Bangalore Variety of Indian Sign Language. Washington DC: Gallaudet Research Institute. 158 pp.
One of four studies focusing on ISL varieties at Bangalore, Delhi (1980), Bombay (1986), Calcutta (1987). After an introduction setting out some of the complexities of the field, most of the book comprises a dictionary of diagrammatic representations of signs, drawn by Vishnu Sharma, a deaf artist. "The principal author, the consultants, the photographic models, the photographers, and the artist are all deaf and fluent users of Indian Sign Language" (p.2)
VASISHTA, M.M., WOODWARD, J., & DE SANTIS, S. (1987) Indian [sign languages]. In: John V. VAN CLEVE (ed) Gallaudet Encyclopedia of Deaf People and Deafness, III: 79-81. New York: McGraw-Hill, 3 vols.
Brief introduction to Indian Sign Language. The sole historical remark is the suggestion that "ISL has no relationship to hand gestures used in classical Indian dance forms." Notes that "some Americans have tried to impose their signing systems on Indian deaf people, believing that there was no indigenous Indian Sign Language", and that this has caused some difficulties among deaf people in India.
VASISHTA, M.M., WOODWARD, J.C., & WILSON, Kirk L. (1978) Sign language in India: regional variation within the deaf population. Indian J. Applied Linguistics IV (2) 66-74.
Preliminary study, using filmed evidence, suggesting a substantial degree of uniformity in urban Indian Sign Language, and little or no connection of ISL with European or American sign languages.
VERMA, Surendre M. (1999) Social Integration of the Deaf: a study of Delhi. New Delhi: Northern Book Centre. xxvi + 182 pp. isbn 8172110952
Based on a 1996 dissertation, this is a problem-centred study of previous literature and of responses by deaf and hearing people to various questions of the integration of deaf people in society, economic self-support, attitudes of different groups. Some space is allotted for deaf people to give their views, and to outline some of the causes of their oppression. The hearing world learns that deaf Indians are not all enthusiastic about the prospect of being 'integrated'.
VICTOR, Prem (1982) Mainstreaming in India. In: P. Victor & A. Loewe (eds) All India Workshop for Teachers and Parents of Hearing Impaired Children. Selected Papers, 168-174. New Delhi: Max Mueller Bhavan.
Outlines some ways in which the integration of deaf children in Indian schools could be achieved, and the changes needed for it to be successful.
VOHRA, Roopa (1988) Institutional Services for the Disabled. Series II: services for the speech and hearing impaired individuals in India. Disabilities and Impairments 2 (1) 58-81. (Delhi: Akshat Publications)
With a brief introduction, lists 114 centres and organisations, by State, giving year of establishment, age range, nature of activities etc.
WOODWARD, J. (1993) The relationship of sign language varieties in India, Pakistan and Nepal. Sign Language Studies 78: 15-22.
Suggests relations between sign languages at Karachi, Kathmandu, Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta and Bangalore, on the basis of comparing terms from a basic vocabulary list. ("Possible cognates" are shown, but the criteria of comparisons are not given.)
YAU SHUN-CHIU (1994) Sign languages in Asia. In: R.E. ASHER & J.M.Y. SIMPSON (eds) The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 7: 3921-3922. 10 vols. Oxford: Pergamon.
Briefly points out the lack of scholarly resource directed towards study of the sign languages of the majority of the world's deaf population. Mentions background factors from colonial times, and lists a few publications from South Asia and East Asia.
Zaban Ishara [Dari: Sign Language] (1991) Kabul: Centre for Disability Service.
Comprised of several booklets labelled: First Book First Part First Edition (25pp); First Book Second Volume First Edition Jan.1991 (23pp); First Book Second Volume First edition Dec.1991 (9pp); First Book, Third Part First Edition (30pp); First Book, Fourth Part First edition (29pp). Efforts to formulate and codify the sign language used among deaf people in Kabul, Afghanistan, with a basis in American Sign Language, and ILO assistance. (The numbering of the booklets is not entirely clear). (See also LEE, above)
ZESHAN, Ulrike (1996) Aspects of Pakistani sign language. Sign Language Studies 92: 253-96.
Detailed analyses of segments of video-taped spontaneous signed conversations obtained from fieldwork in Karachi in 1994, with short introduction.
ZESHAN, U. (1997) "Sprache der Hände?" - Nichtmanuelle Phänomene und Nutzung des Raums in der Pakistanischen Gebärdensprache. Das Zeichen 39: 90-105.
ZESHAN, U. (2000) Sign language in Indo-Pakistan: a description of a signed language. Philadelphia, Pa.; Amsterdam; John Benjamins. isbn 1556198574
Based on Zeshan's structural and grammatical analysis of many hours of video recordings in field work at Karachi from 1994 onward and more recent studies in Delhi. This "clearly indicates that sign language varieties in both cities in fact constitute the same language and have identical grammars" (p. 1). The signs, morphology and syntax of this single IPSL (Indo-Pak Sign Language) are described and explained in Zeshan's book using language and symbols that are technical, yet surprisingly comprehensible to the non-specialist. The book serves as an illustrated and action-packed introduction to how modern linguistics gets to grips with a sign language, culminating in descriptions of the use of space in the structuring of discourse in fluent IPSL, where the whole body is communicating in space and time "to stage situations before the addressee in a film-like way" (p. 126), representing several characters in a story from their different points of view. This admirable cinematic potential is one of the factors inspiring the researcher "to ever more detailed studies of sign language structure." (p. 129)
ZESHAN, U. [2000] Gebärdensprachen des indischen Subkontinents. [PhD dissertation]. Munich: LINCOM Europa.
ZVELEBIL, Kamal Veith (1991) Tamil traditions on Subrahmanya-Murugan. Madras: Institute of Asian studies. 125 pp. + plates.
Recounts on pp. 20-22 the story of Murugan's birth as a dumb child. [An inadvertent variation on p. 21 has Murugan as a "numb child".] (See DESSIGANE et al, 1960). Also a brief note (pp. 55, 69) on Kumaraguruparar, who "was dumb till his fifth year. (See also ARUNACHALAM, in 1200-1750 section).