Bay Islands, Honduras

There is a complex signing situation in the Bay Islands. Deaf people educated on the mainland use Honduran Sign Language (Lengua de Señas Hondureñas), and like elsewhere in the Caribbean, American Sign Language is used by religious organisations. There are also some deaf-sighted people who use home signs. There is also a sign language indigenous to the islands of Guanaja and Roatán, used in a community of deaf-sighted, deaf-blind, and hearing-sighted individuals.

In 2016, Ben Braithwaite, Ian Dhanoolal, Kristian Ali and Kimone Elvin visited Guanaja and Roatán, and met various members of this community. The same team returned in 2018 to carry out a documentation project of this language, which we refer to as Bay Islands Sign Language, funded by a grant from the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme.

The Bay Islands Sign Language documentation project yielded 30 hours of video recordings and some audio recording of an interview with a hearing-sighted person. The video recordings include: (i) naturalistic conversation between two or more deaf-blind people, (ii) free conversations between members of our research team (deaf-sighted and hearing-sighted) and a deaf-blind signer, (iii) free conversations between a deaf-blind person and hearing-sighted family and friends, and (iv) word lists elicited from one deafblind signer and two hearing-sighted signers. Deaf-blind and hearing-sighted consultants shared with us the oral history of their families and community. We visited many sites of importance to the consultants such as the homes of family and friends, other towns and villages and a special trip to the neighbouring island of Guanaja. Video, audio and annotation files produced in this project can be found on the Endangered Languages Archive.

Consultants described that the first generation of deaf-blind people were born in Roatán at the end of the 19th century and signed amongst themselves, their friends and their neighbours. Some decades later, there were four deaf sisters on another part of the island who were related to the first generation. The cause of their deafness, Usher Syndrome, causes progressive vision loss from adulthood. The language has been transmitted over several generations, and BISL signers have experience with both visual and tactile perception and production of the language.

Nearing the end of our time in Roatán, the team gave two presentations to community members. The first presentation introduced students of two local secondary schools to the language and a deaf-blind signer. Secondly, the team presented to the local community about the outcomes of the documentation project, as well as their documentation efforts across the Caribbean. The presentation was given in English and Trinidad and Tobago Sign Language and was interpreted into Bay Islands Sign Language for deaf-blind signers. These presentations would not be possible without the kind support of the Roatán Culture House (Jhon and Edith).

List of resources:

Bay Islands Sign Language ELAR deposit

Roatan Culture House on Facebook

TISLR poster

Kristian’s HDLS14 presentation