otherlanguages.org (links page 2)

Sign languages, used all over the world (as the handy list of websites at http://dww.deafworldweb.org/pub/s/signlang.html begins to show) by deaf people and their friends and family, are real and sophisticated languages (hearing people are often surprised to learn), as rich and detailed as aural languages like Russian, Swahili, or English - sign languages are not really hand-signed versions of spoken languages (American Sign Language is much closer to French Sign Language than British Sign Language for example), and two deaf languages can be found inside one spoken-language area, or sometimes one deaf language can be shared by two or more spoken-language areas:

http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/special.html a list of 103 sign languages comes fourth on this page, after lists of Gypsy languages, Jewish languages, and a list of creoles and pidgins

A clear, no-nonsense site about the Netherlands sign language (gebarentaal) is at http://www.hum.uva.nl/home/ngt/cultuur/index.html for now in Dutch only

The Japanese Federation of the Deaf site is at http://www.jfd.or.jp/ and an informative essay (with some broken links) about Japanese Sign Language is at http://www.deaflibrary.org/jsl.html

This remarkable site about telephones and telecommunications cannot be recommended too strongly - phones were originally intended by A. G. Bell as an aid to helping deaf people, odd as that may 'sound' now - there is actually a sparse network of videophones designed specifically for the needs of people communicating with American Sign - see the deep archived phone-system material on http://telecomwriting.com/ for more details

slower-loading websites

Not so slow at all, though perhaps on older browsers will take time to load, http://www.handspeak.com/ is a wonderful site with clear, animated videos for different words in ASL (and some other sign languages), organised into an online lexicon

http://library.thinkquest.org/11942/ is a vivid, illustrated guide to sign languages around the world, using a clickable map, which may load slowly on some browsers but is worth the wait

A lone or 'rogue' letter d, blending almost undetectably into its natural habitat *1

maps

quicker-loading websites

http://bamse.ling.su.se/~ljuba/maps.shtmlis simply Ljuba's collection of language maps, and a lovely and useful collection it is

http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/ is a richly-coloured map showing the 20 languages of Alaska - it fronts the site for a centre working to study and protect those languages

http://www.nmia.com/~quasho/jemezalb.gif is a gif file map showing Pueblo tribal areas

http://www.usc.es/~ilgas/mapas.htmlis a set of rather specialised phonetic dialect maps of the Galician language in Spain - loads fast and gives a more detailed idea of what many working linguists actually do

slower-loading websites

http://www.geocities.com/indoeurop/tree/tree.htmland http://babaev.newmail.ru/tree/maps.%20%20htmlgive quite comprehensive lists of language and history maps but with some broken links and slow-loading pages - foran idea of some of their listed maps, check the left-hand, quick-loading column

http://www.geocities.com/indoeurop/tree%20%20/ital/ita.html is a natty coloured map of languages in Italy, complete with pop-up box, as is

http://www.home.ch/~spaw1241/%20%20big900.htm not strictly linguistic, but is a map (in French) showing Europe in 900 AD - from a set of historical maps that can be found listed alongside language maps on several Indo-European sites

songs and music

quicker-loading websites

This website ~ specialises in ethnic music and songs from unusual places in lesser-known languages - though http://www.xenomusic.com currently has an emphasis on East-European and Near-Eastern material, they're quickly expanding their catalogue of downloadable music

http://www.greatmoon.com/greatmoon/native_music.html is a Native American site with songs

http://stations.mp3s.com/stations%20/13/kiwi_songs_radio.html has songs by New Zealand's Maoris

slower-loading websites

http://www.geocities.com/dawee50/is a rather wonderful site about Taiwanese and Chinese pop music

~
Some music links - ambient or lowercase sound - for the u:ber-hip among us
forcelab http://www.force-lab.com/flab/
forcetracks http://www.force-tracks.net/ft/
ritornell http://www.ritornell.net/rit/
not forgetting earlabs http://www.earlabs.org/
with a fine bit of mysteron-type sound as soon as you open http://groovylab.com/sundays/index015.html and electric company http://www.bradlaner.com/ with a sample mp3 of theirs at http://www.bradlaner.com/snd/elcosnip10.mp3 with a lot of background at the intimidatingly minimalist http://www.lowercasesound.com/finder.html

dead languages
quicker-loading websites Here are some Cornish sites - as a revived language some enthusiasts of the Celtic language of Cornwall may object to these sites going here http://www.ozemail.com.au/~kevrenor/kevren.html http://nexus6.robots.eeng.liv.ac.uk/~evansjon/kowethas.htm likewise Manx Gaelic revivers http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~stephen/	slower-loading websites This site at http://www.samskrita-bharati.org/is for the hardy souls busy bringing Sanskrit, the Latin of modern Indian languages, back into the world of the living More Cornish revivalism at http://www.clas.demon.co.uk/

this page: sign languages / maps / songs and music / dead languages

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