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Irit Meir (August 18,1957 –February 23,2018) was an Israeli linguist,who specialized in the linguistics of sign languages. She was an associate professor in the Department of Hebrew Language and the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Haifa,and the associate director of the Sign Language Research Lab. [1] [2]
Irit Meir was born Irit Eisenstadt on August 18,1957 in Jerusalem. [3] Her parents were Professor Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt,an Israeli sociologist, [4] and Shulamit. [5]
During her school years,Irit was involved with the Israeli Scout Movement,where she was a leader. She participated in several Israeli youth delegations to the USA and Europe,and was involved in social and voluntary activities during her school years. She also played the flute for years. Meir finished high school at the top of her class,serving as valedictorian at its graduation ceremony. In 1975 she spent a pre-induction year of social work in the southern town of Mitzpe Ramon.
Her army service was with the IDF Intelligence Corps,in which she furthered her studies of the Arabic language.
Irit Meir obtained her PhD in 1998 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her thesis was entitled,"Thematic structure and verb agreement in Israeli Sign Language." The syntax and semantics of verb agreement was one central strand of her research on sign languages. Another was iconicity. [6] [7]
Meir wrote a book on Israeli Sign Language aimed at the general public with Wendy Sandler (Meir &Sandler 2007).
In collaboration with Mark Aronoff,Carol Padden and Wendy Sandler,Meir made fundamental contributions to the investigation of the emergence of language with her research on Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language. [8] Their research is featured in the popular science book,Talking Hands,by Margalit Fox.
Meir was also a scholar of Modern Hebrew,serving on a committee for linguistic terminology in the national Academy of the Hebrew Language. [3] She authored articles on the linguistics of Modern Hebrew and,with Moshe Bar-Asher,co-edited Nit'e Ilan:Studies in Hebrew and Related Fields. [9]
Sign 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 languages are full-fledged natural languages with their own grammar and lexicon. Sign languages are not universal and are usually not mutually intelligible,although there are also similarities among different sign languages.
Nicaraguan Sign Language is a form of sign language which developed spontaneously among deaf children in a number of schools in Nicaragua in the 1980s. It is of particular interest to linguists as it offers them a unique opportunity to study what they believe to be the birth of a new language.
Modern Hebrew,also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli,and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew,is the standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. Spoken in ancient times,Ancient Hebrew,a member of the Canaanite branch of the Semitic language family,was supplanted as the Jewish vernacular by the western dialect of Aramaic beginning in the third century BCE,though it continued to be used as a liturgical and literary language. It was revived as a spoken language in the 19th and 20th centuries and is the official language of Israel. Of the Canaanite languages,Modern Hebrew is the only language spoken today.
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities,based in Jerusalem,was established in 1961 by the State of Israel to foster contact between Israeli scholars in the sciences and humanities and create a think tank for advising the government on research projects of national importance. Its members include many of Israel's most distinguished scholars.
Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL) is a village sign language used by about 150 deaf and many hearing members of the al-Sayyid Bedouin tribe in the Negev desert of southern Israel.
Providence Island Sign Language is a village sign language of the small island community of Providence Island in the Western Caribbean,off the coast of Nicaragua but belonging to Colombia. The island is about 15 square miles (39 km2) and the total population is about 5000,of which an unusual proportion are deaf.
The Israeli population is linguistically and culturally diverse. Hebrew is the country's official language,and almost the entire population speaks it either as native speakers or proficiently as a second language. Its standard form,known as Modern Hebrew,is the main medium of life in Israel. Arabic is used mainly by Israel's Arab minority which comprises about one-fifth of the population. Arabic has a special status under Israeli law.
Israeli Sign Language,also known as Shassi or ISL,is the most commonly used sign language by the Deaf community of Israel. Some other sign languages are also used in Israel,among them Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language.
Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt was an Israeli sociologist and writer. In 1959 he was appointed to a teaching post in the sociology department of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. From 1990 until his death in September 2010 he was professor emeritus. He held countless guest professorships,at the University of Chicago,Harvard University,the University of Zurich,the University of Vienna,the University of Bern,Stanford and the University of Heidelberg,among others. Eisenstadt received a number of prizes,including the Balzan prize and the Max-Planck research prize. He was also the 2006 winner of the Holberg International Memorial Prize. He was a member of many academies,including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Advisory Editors Council of the Social Evolution &History Journal. His daughter Irit Meir was a noted scholar of Israeli sign language.
Mekitze Nirdamim is a literary society dedicated to the retrieval,preservation,and publication of medieval Hebrew texts. It was first established at Lyck,Prussia in 1861,and is now based out of Jerusalem,Israel.
Saudi Sign Language is the deaf sign language of Saudi Arabia. This sign language is different from the Unified Arabic Sign Language that is used by 18 Arab countries. There are 100,000 deaf people in Saudi Arabia.
In sign languages, the term classifier construction refers to a morphological system that can express events and states. They use handshape classifiers to represent movement,location,and shape. Classifiers differ from signs in their morphology,namely in that signs consist of a single morpheme. Signs are composed of three meaningless phonological features:handshape,location,and movement. Classifiers,on the other hand,consist of many morphemes. Specifically,the handshape,location,and movement are all meaningful on their own. The handshape represents an entity and the hand's movement iconically represents the movement of that entity. The relative location of multiple entities can be represented iconically in two-handed constructions.
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 language as one which "arise[s] in an existing,relatively insular community into which a number of deaf children are born." The term "rural sign language" refers to almost the same concept. In many cases,the sign language is known throughout the community by a large portion of the hearing population. These languages generally include signs derived from gestures used by the hearing population,so that neighboring village sign languages may be lexically similar without being actually related,due to local similarities in cultural gestures which preceded the sign languages. Most village sign languages are endangered due to the spread of formal education for the deaf,which use or generate deaf-community sign languages,such as a national or foreign sign language.
Algerian Jewish Sign Language (AJSL),also known as Ghardaia Sign Language,is a moribund village sign language originally of Ghardaïa,Algeria that is now used in Israel and possibly also in France.
A deaf-community or urban sign language is a sign language that emerges when deaf people who do not have a common language come together and form a community. This may be a formal situation,such as the establishment of a school for deaf students,or informal,such as migration to cities for employment and the subsequent gathering of deaf people for social purposes. An example of the first is Nicaraguan Sign Language,which emerged when deaf children in Nicaragua were brought together for the first time,and received only oral education;of the latter,Bamako Sign Language,which emerged among the tea circles of the uneducated deaf in the capital of Mali. Nicaraguan SL is now a language of instruction and is recognized as the national sign language;Bamako SL is not,and is threatened by the use of American Sign Language in schools for the deaf.
Ruth Berman is an Israeli linguist,Professor Emerita,Tel Aviv University,where she held the chair in “Language across the Lifespan.”Berman's research deals with the morphology,syntax,and lexicon of Modern Hebrew,first language acquisition in cross-linguistic perspective,later language development,and development of narrative and text construction abilities from early childhood across adolescence and adulthood.
Kafr Qasem Sign Language is a village sign language of Israel.
Juliette Blevins is an American linguist whose work has contributed to the fields of phonology,phonetics,historical linguistics,and typology. She is currently Professor of Linguistics at the Graduate Center,CUNY.
Wendy Sandler is an American-Israeli linguist who is known for her research on the phonology of Sign Languages.
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