Deaf cultures and Sign Languages of the world: Asia

Created 10 April 2000, links updated monthly with the help of LinkAlarm.

Chinese flag Nepalan flag Philippine flag David Bar-TzurSouth Korean flag Hong Kong flagJapanese flag

Map of Asia

Flags: World flag database.
Map: Virtual Tourist.

For a quick, interesting resource for facts about this and other countries,
try Mystic Planet - The New Age directory of Planet Earth.

Note: A flag next to a link shows what language the website is in. If it is followed by this icon: (video camera: This links to a video), it is a video in that spoken language. A flag followed by Sign Language iconmeans it is in the sign language of that country. globe (international icon)Sign Language iconmeans there is International Gesture.

Asian Sign Languages Asian Sign Language dictionaries Deaf Asian cultures Deaf Asian history and current events Deafblind
Deaf education & youth Deaf people and the law Organizations

Artistic interpreting: Music, poetry, literature, and theater

Asian Sign Languages

Sign, gesture, & deafness in South Asian & South-West Asian histories: A bibliography with annotation and excerpts from India; also from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma / Myanmar, Iraq, Nepal, Pakistan, Persia / Iran, & Sri Lanka.

Asian Sign Language dictionaries

Bar-Tzur, D. Indigenous signs for countries: Asia.

Deaf advocacy and politics

DeafTODAY. (2002, November 1). A barrier-free era for the disabled. This week in the picturesque Japanese city of Otsu on the shores of tranquil Lake Biwako, high-level government officials from across Asia and the Pacific reached a major milestone, by agreeing to work together to bring to an end the centuries-old practice of discriminating against persons with disabilities.

Takada, E. Solidarity and Movements of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Asia. The central force in achieving full participation and equality for people with disabilities is the organizations and movements of people with disabilities themselves. The Japanese Federation of the Deaf (JFD) made great progress in the advancement of welfare for Deaf people in Japan through Deaf rights movements conducted after World War II. Based on these experiences, JFD hosted the 9th World Congress of the Deaf in 1991 in Tokyo. The "Asian Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons, 1993-2002" presented another opportunity for advance. As a member of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), JFD has been playing an active role in helping to establish and develop Deaf organizations in Asia. One of our major projects is the "Leadership Training of Asian and Oceanian Deaf Persons", commissioned by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The training program was initiated in 1995, and a total of 39 persons have been trained in the 5 courses completed so far.

Deaf Asian cultures

About.com. Deaf Asian Americans.

Miles, M. Signs of Development in Deaf South & South-West Asia: histories, cultural identities, resistance to cultural imperialism. The revised article offers evidence and hypotheses for a short cultural history of deaf people, culture and sign language in South Asia and South West Asia, using documents from antiquity through 2005. A new appendix shows 110 items on deafness and sign language in the Arab countries of the Eastern Mediterranean and South West Asia.

MiningCo.com. Deaf Asians.

Sign, gesture, & deafness in South Asian & South-West Asian histories: A bibliography with annotation and excerpts from India; also from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma / Myanmar, Iraq, Nepal, Pakistan, Persia / Iran, & Sri Lanka.

Some post-1970 items relevant to signing & deafness in South & South-West Asia.

Deaf Asian history and current events

Deaf-Asian USA-NEWS.

Miles, M. Signs of Development in Deaf South & South-West Asia: histories, cultural identities, resistance to cultural imperialism. The revised article offers evidence and hypotheses for a short cultural history of deaf people, culture and sign language in South Asia and South West Asia, using documents from antiquity through 2005. A new appendix shows 110 items on deafness and sign language in the Arab countries of the Eastern Mediterranean and South West Asia.

Sign, gesture, & deafness in South Asian & South-West Asian histories: A bibliography with annotation and excerpts from India; also from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma / Myanmar, Iraq, Nepal, Pakistan, Persia / Iran, & Sri Lanka.

Some post-1970 items relevant to signing & deafness in South & South-West Asia.

Deafblind

Deaf education & youth

DeafTODAY. (2002, October 22). Closing Central Asia's Tech Gap. Funded by the U.S. State Department, the Internet Access and Training Program (IATP) implements and operates centers that provide free Internet and computer training to the people of Central Asia... It has recently extended its program to serve the Central Asian deaf community by teaching them how computers and the Internet can benefit their communications. IATP is also making its centers wheelchair accessible.

Japanese Deaf News.

golden marble bullet(2006, April 15). Making inputs from the standpoint of the Deaf - ILO expert group meeting on inclusion of people with disabilities in vocational training, Feb. 14~16, 2006, UN ESCAP Convention Center, Bangkok, Thailand.

golden marble bullet(2006, February). Asian Deaf Friendship Fund supports deaf schools in Myanmar.

Miles, M. Historical Bibliography on Educational & Social Responses to Disabilities & Childhood in some Middle Eastern & South Asian Countries, from Antiquity to the 1950s. The present partially annotated bibliography of some 550 items lists a modest proportion of the Middle Eastern and South Asian historical sources and secondary literature on educational, social, legal, religious and ethnographic topics that have some bearing on disability and on the background of infancy, childhood, education etc, mostly in towns and cities.

アジア太平洋の障害者の教育.

Organizations

Asian Deaf Club.

Japanese Deaf News. (2002, November 1). 14th World Federation of the Deaf Regional Secretariat in Asia/Pacific (WFD RSA/P) Representatives Meeting.

National Asian Deaf Congress.

stained glass bulletNational Asian Deaf Conference. (2007, January 30). National Asian Deaf Conference - Welcome Video!signing hands

Partners In Compassion - Meeting the Needs of the Deaf in Southeast Asia. The deaf in Vietnam are mostly overlooked. If they get to go to school at all it is usually only the first or second grade. In the countryside most deaf have never heard of sign language. Unable to read or write and with no knowledge of sign language they are limited to only the simplest gesturing in a society that does not understand their role of compassion to the disabled or different. Their lack of communication prevents them from obtaining the most basic of life’s rights. The right to family security, the right to education, the right to work and be productive.

Southeast Asian Deaf Organizations Symposium 2007.

Takada, E. Solidarity and Movements of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Asia. The central force in achieving full participation and equality for people with disabilities is the organizations and movements of people with disabilities themselves. The Japanese Federation of the Deaf (JFD) made great progress in the advancement of welfare for Deaf people in Japan through Deaf rights movements conducted after World War II. Based on these experiences, JFD hosted the 9th World Congress of the Deaf in 1991 in Tokyo. The "Asian Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons, 1993-2002" presented another opportunity for advance. As a member of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), JFD has been playing an active role in helping to establish and develop Deaf organizations in Asia. One of our major projects is the "Leadership Training of Asian and Oceanian Deaf Persons", commissioned by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The training program was initiated in 1995, and a total of 39 persons have been trained in the 5 courses completed so far.

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