Guyana

Published research on the sign languages and signing communities of Guyana is very limited. American Sign Language has been used in Georgetown, and some other areas, introduced through missionary and educational programmes. Deaf communities also identify Guyanese Sign Language as the national sign language. There has been very little systematic attempt to document Guyanese Sign Language, or to determine the extent to which it diverges from varieties of American Sign Language. In January 2020 Kristian Ali, Ben Braithwaite, Ian Dhanoolal and Johannah-Rae Reyes organised a two day workshop on sign language documentation, in the hope of supporting the development of Guyanese deaf community researchers. This workshop was supported by both the Deaf Association of Guyana as well as Seeing Eyes Signing Hands, a local NGO.

Outside Georgetown there is considerable diversity. Distinct sign languages have been created in small signing communities, particularly in Indigenous communities. Below, we include descriptions of work on two such communities, in South Rupununi (Region 9) and Falmouth (Region 10). It seems very likely that there are others.

Falmouth / Region 10

In the village of Falmouth there is a unique sign language, used by at least four generations of deaf and hearing people, that is not related to Guyanese Sign Language. In 2018, Ben Braithwaite and Ian Dhanoolal led a class of undergraduate students from the University of West Indies, St Augustine on a short field trip to Guyana. With the help of the Deaf Association of Guyana, they visited Falmouth. They carried out some very basic language documentation, from which they produced a small booklet with illustrations of some local signs alongside English translations.

The following year, a team comprising Ben Braithwaite, Johannah-Rae Reyes, Ian Dhanoolal and Kristian Ali designed a larger documentation project following further consultations with the local community and the Deaf Association of Guyana. The project received funding from UNICEF, in partnership with the Ministry of Education in 2019. A major concern raised by the community was the exclusion of deaf children from the formal education system. Therefore, the main focus of the project is to develop educational resources to support teaching and learning in the local sign language. This work is ongoing, but has been interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

South Rupununi / Region 9

Historical records show a longstanding presence of deaf people in South Rupununi for at least a century. In early 2015, Ben Braithwaite made a preliminary field trip to the region and later in the year returned alongside Rehana Omardeen and Lily Kwok. The purpose of these trips were to observe how deaf people in the region communicated with each other and with their hearing communities. These trips were facilitated by Leroy Ignacio of the South Rupununi Conservation Society, and supported by the Deaf Association of Guyana. Both trips lasted a few days and involved hearing researchers. The resulting observations are thus limited in scope.

The team visited eight Indigenous villages, meeting and interacting with deaf individuals, their families and friends. Overall, they observed that there were lexical similarities across villages despite the distance between them. Deaf individuals in each village were generally familiar with each other. Work and festivals often brought them together, and at least one individual came from a multigenerational deaf family. Many hearing people also signed. Since these trips, efforts were made by the Deaf Association of Guyana to visit South Rupununi.

List of resources:

Guyanese Sign Language:

Language Blag post on ASL in Guyana https://languageblag.wordpress.com/2014/06/20/asl-around-the-world-a-trinidadian-an-englishman-a-nigerian-and-a-guyanese-walk-into-in-park-in-guyana/

Blog post by Dr Julie Hochgesang https://lingdept.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/what-i-think-about-a-peace-corps-posting-for-a-sign-language-teaching-in-guyana/

Guyana Deaf Mission Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Guyana-Deaf-Mission-Inc-308852996263130/

Deaf Association of Guyana website https://deafguyana.weebly.com/

Deaf Association of Guyana Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/deafguyana/

Seeing Eyes Signing Hands (SESH) website http://seshinc.org/

Interview with Tracey Cholmondeley https://www.dropbox.com/s/xy8yqanlipm2eq3/Tracey_profile.jpg

Georgetown documentation of signs

https://youtu.be/W9iZKjXLhZA

South Rupununi (Sign Language)