Since the middle of the twentieth century, scientific research has demonstrated that signed languages are full linguistic systems, unrelated to and independent of the spoken languages in their environments. The bulk of linguistic and anthropological research on deaf communities and signed languages has been concentrated in the USA and Western Europe, while hardly any attention has been paid to the Middle East and North Africa. In this talk on signed language diversity in the Arab world, I discuss pathways of signed language migration, the linguistic structure of signed languages, and the importance of language rights as human rights for deaf signing communities.
