The Georgian Dactyl Alphabet

Abstract

In the Soviet period sign languages in this region were highly influenced by the Russian language and the old Georgian dactyl alphabet was totally based on the Russian one, with only a few additional specific letters.

The idea of creating a new original Georgian dactyl alphabet came form the local community of deaf and hard of hearing people and I was honored to work together with these people on this project. The creation of a new original dactyl alphabet based on Georgian letters was a natural step for Georgia and consistent with the sign language nationalization developments in the post-Soviet linguistic space.   

This paper presents the results of our work: the new Georgian dactyl alphabet. This alphabet is one-handed with the dactyls which are easy to create and to move between. The method of processing is a mixed type and it is a letter-dactyl (non-syllabic) alphabet by the principle of marking.

In the presented papers we also display the theoretical base and the main principles for the dactyl alphabets and the 10 rules of dactiling.