Colour terms, kinship terms and numerals in Estonian Sign Language
Liivi Hollman · 2016
Estonian Sign Language (EVK) is a small language used by approximately 1,400-1,500 deaf people in Estonia, inhabited by 1.3 million people.EVK research only started in late 1980s and since 1994 EVK has also been used as a primary language in deaf education.Starting from 2007 EVK is a legally recognised language in Estonia, enacted by the Language Act, which defines EVK as an independent language and signed Estonian as a mode of the Estonian language (Wheatley and Pabsch 2012: 55).Considering historical relationships, it may be assumed that EVK has probably been influenced by German and Russian traditions in deaf education and by Russian Sign Language, which, in turn, on the basis of historical knowledge, is believed to be connected to French Sign Language (LSF) and ASL (Zeshan 2005: 559).The evolution of EVK is related to the establishment of the first deaf school in 1866 in Vändra, Estonia.Although, following the German tradition, oral teaching method was used in the school, signing in student communication was also supported.Therefore, bringing together deaf students from all over Estonia and giving them the possibility to communicate created a perfect environment for EVK to develop.During the Soviet era (1940 -1991) deaf education was mostly influenced by the Russian tradition, and communication between deaf communities in Estonia and Russia, as well as other member states of the Soviet Union was strongly supported by mutual visits and co-operation.Together with the increase of the Russian population in Estonia in general, also the number of Russian deaf people living in Estonia increased.Although currently most of the Russian deaf children living in Estonia attend Estonian schools, it is estimated that based on the total number of Russian population in Estonia (340 000 people in 2012), there are approximately 300-400 Russian deaf people living in Estonia, being part of the Estonian deaf community but using also Russian SL.A comparison of the EVK lexicon with the Russian SL lexicon, according to Swadesh's 200-word list, shows that 61% of the signs are identical in these