Challenging Sign Language Lineages and Geographies: The Case of Eritrean, Finnish, and Swedish Sign Languages
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When I was signing, they actually understood! I was stunned. I understood all of their signs. My signs were really theirs! I was embarrassed. I already knew that Eritrea and Sweden shared the same sign language but after I saw with my own eyes, I wondered: Where’s Eritrean Sign Language? Where is really our language? A member in a sign language planning group in Eritrea named Nazret Mussa signed this quote. She is a Deaf Eritrean from a Deaf family. She was selected to visit Sweden to learn more about the particular country of her school’s supporting missionary and was flabbergasted when she could converse easily with signers there. She knew the history of Eritrean Sign Language (EriSL) previously, but it took a three-thousand-mile flight for her to realize the very close relationship between her language and those of Nordic countries, specifically Finland and Sweden.
En: Friedner, M. y Kusters, A. (2015): It's a small world: international deaf spaces and encounters, pp. 83-94.