Levantine Arabic Sign Language

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Levantine Arabic Sign Language is the sign language used by people of the area known as Bilad al-Sham or the Levant, comprising Jordan, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon. Although there are significant differences in vocabulary between the four states, this is not much greater than regional differences within the states. Grammar is quite uniform and mutual intelligibility is high, indicating that they are dialects of a single language.^[2]

The language typically goes by the name of the country, as so:

• Jordanian SL: لغة الإشارة الأردنية, Lughat il-Ishārah il-Urduniyyah (LIU)
• Lebanese SL: لغة الإشارات اللبنانية, Lughat al-Ishārāt al-Lubnāniyyah (LIL)
• Palestinian SL: لغة الاشارات الفلسطينية, Lughat al-Ishārāt al-Filisṭīniyyah (LIF)
• Syrian SL: لغة الإشارة السورية, Lughat il-Ishārah il-Sūriyyah (LIS)

• Hendriks, Bernadet (2008). Jordanian Sign Language: Aspects of grammar from a cross-linguistic perspective (PDF). LOT. ISBN 978-90-78328-67-4.
• Richardson, Kristina (Winter 2017). "New Evidence for Early Ottoman Arabic and Turkish Sign Systems". Sign Language Studies. 17 (2): 172–192. doi:10.1353/sls.2017.0001. S2CID 44038104.