“Mother tongue” or “broken Arabic”: Competing discourses about Jordanian Sign Language (LIU) in Amman

Abstract

This article examines competing discourses about Jordanian Sign Language (LIU) among deaf and hearing people in Amman, based on ethnographic fieldwork at an educational start-up for deaf children and at a deaf cultural center. In these spaces, how my interlocutors discussed the use and value of LIU took on conflicting ideological tones: on the one hand, they would emphasize the importance of access to sign language for deaf children, described as the “mother tongue” (al-lugha al-ʾumm) of deaf people. On the other hand, they would make comments that disparaged LIU as a form of “broken Arabic” (ʿarabi mukassar). I argue that these contradictory discourses can be productively read as forms of rhetoric: for instance, calling LIU the “mother tongue” of deaf Jordanians, rooted in its materiality, is a way for the start-up staff to convince audiences to support their cause, while describing LIU as “broken Arabic,” while incorrect, is useful insofar as it asks students of sign language not to sign in conformity to Arabic grammar. Building on recent work on sign language ideologies, I argue for understanding these contradictory discourses in the contexts in which they are deployed and for the centrality of language to deaf personhood in Jordan.