126 Sign Language Studies Vol. 15 No. 2 Winter 2015 VICTORIA NYST The Sign Language Situation in Mali Abstract This article gives a irst overview of the sign language situation in Mali and its capital, Bamako, located in the West African Sahel. Mali is a highly multilingual country with a signiicant incidence of deaf- ness, for which meningitis appears to be the main cause, coupled with limited access to adequate health care. In comparison to neighboring countries, the irst school for deaf children was established relatively late—in 1995. Various sign languages have been used in Malian deaf education, but, following the regional trend, the schools for deaf children eventually settled for a variety of ASL adapted to French. The vast majority of Malian signers have not received formal educa- tion, however, and have no or only limited command of ASL. They use various forms of the local sign language, Malian Sign Language (LSM). The best-documented variety of LSM is the one used in Ba- mako, for which a dictionary and an annotated corpus exist. Another annotated corpus has been compiled for several varieties found in the Dogon area. Ambivalent attitudes are found in the deaf commu- nity with regard to the value and linguistic status of LSM and ASL, which pose a threat to the continued use of LSM, and deaf Malians are found to switch to ASL in areas in contact with deaf education or with formally educated signers. The aim of this article is to inventory information about deafness and sign language use in Mali and its capital, Bamako, in West Africa. 1 The information on Mali, its deaf population, and its sign language situation comes from published and unpublished docu- ments, my own observations, and personal communication with deaf and hearing members of the Malian deaf community. In 1999, when I visited Mali for the irst time to carry out a study on name signs, I met numerous deaf people. Between 2007 and 2012 I led two large documentation projects on varieties of LSM. Information on these SLS 15(2) Pgs 103-224.indd 126 12/31/2014 1:02:39 PM