Language

Kata Kolok is a so-called village-based sign language used in two neighbouring villages in North Bali. The main village has about 2200 inhabitants of whom 50 are deaf. Deafness is due to heritary deafness and consanguinous marital patterns, and has been in the village for 7-12 generations. Because of the large amount of deaf people over vast amounts of time, as well as people's neutral to positive attitudes towards deafness, an indigenous sign language has emerged. This sign language is used by most of the hearing villagers as well. This has allowed the Deaf to be well-integrated into various aspects of village life. What is more, local myths include stories about deaf ghosts and even a deaf God.

In her PhD project Connie de Vos focuses on the use of sign space to talk about spatial events, and how the form of index finger is influenced by the nature of its referent and the linguistic context in which it is used. At the beginning of the project a field station has been set-up in the village which allows Ketut Kanta (one of the hearing villagers) to help in documentation as well translation activities. In specific, a corpus is formed which includes longitudinal data from deaf children acquiring sign language, deaf folklore stories, and hearing signers of various proficiencies. In cooperation with a local elementary school, a deaf school in the main nearby city, and the village head, a small deaf school has been set-up in which among other things written Indonesian is being taught, using Kata Kolok as a language of instruction.

Geography

Publications

• Branson, J., Miller, D., & Marsaja, I. G. (1996). Everyone Here Speaks Sign Language, Too: A Deaf Village in Bali, Indonesia. In C. Lucas (Ed.), Multicultural Aspects of Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities, 39-57. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press.
• Branson, J., Miller, D., & Marsaja, I. G. (1999). Sign Languages as Natural Part of the Linguistic Mosaic: The Impact of Deaf People on Discourse Forms in Northern Bali, Indonesia. In E. Winston (Ed.), Storytelling and Conversation (Vol. 5). Washington D.C.: Gallaudet University Press.
• Liang, Y., Wang, A., Probst, F. J., Arhya, I. N., Barber, T. D., Chen, K.-S., et al. (1998). Genetic Mapping Refines DFNB3 to 17p11.2, Suggests Multiple Alleles of DFNB3, and Supports Homology to the Mouse Model shaker-2. American Journal of Human Genetics, 62, 904-915.
• Marsaja, I. G. (2007). Desa Kolok - A deaf village and its sign language in Bali, Indonesia. Nijmegen: Ishara Press.
• Perniss, P., & Zeshan, U. (forthcoming). Possessive and existential constructions in Kata Kolok. In P. Perniss & U. Zeshan (Eds.), Possessive and existential constructions in sign languages. Sign Language Typology Series No. 2. Nijmegen: Ishara Press.

Photos

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