Italian Sign Language

Italian Sign Language

Italian Sign Language (Lingua Italiana dei Segni [LIS]) and Italian Mimic-Gestural Language (Linguaggio Mimico Gestuale Italiano [LMGI]) are two designations for the sign language used by deaf Italians.

LIS is partially intelligible with French Sign Language. Not intelligible with American Sign Language. Regional differences, but signers from different regions seem to communicate fluently. Used in families, clubs, and schools outside the classroom, but not in the classroom.

In LIS, as in many signed languages that have been investigated to date, verbs appear to be distinguishable in the same three major morphological classes, with verbs of comparable meanings distributed in similar classes. Salient iconic features appear to condition the verbs formal properties, most notably the extent to which a verb does or does not exhibit an inflectional pattern in encoding its main arguments. For example, verbs encoding actions such as EAT are iconically articulated at the mouth and exhibit an uninflectional pattern: their form does not change according to the argument(s) they specify.

Verbs encoding actions such as GIVE or ASK typically possess two points of articulation in space, and exhibit an inflectional pattern which iconically signals the two main arguments implicated in the actions symbolized by these verbs.