Collection of recordings of various South Asian sign languages (SASLs)

Linguistic analysis of SASL lexica, sublexical features, grammatical structures, and usage

Creation, organization, and maintenance of a database of SASL signs and analyses

Showcase of linguistic diversity within and across SASLs: basic word comparison

Our research team is based at the Reed College Lab of Linguistics (LoL) in Portland, Oregon, USA.

Primary contact: Prof. Sameer ud Dowla Khan (Linguistics)

Undergraduate student co-authors: Renata Akeed (Comparative Literature '26), Karina Bary (Linguistics, '25), Owen Fidler (Math/Physics '25), Jojo Hartman (Linguistics '23)

Undergraduate student research assistant: Reasat Prottoy (Math '26)

Presented our lexical comparison of the sign languages of Bangladesh and West Bengal (vs. mainstream Indian Sign Language) in a poster at Sign Language Contact, Variation, and Change in Birmingham, UK in August 2025.

Currently working on a larger phonetic sketch of Bangla Sign Language/BaSL (a.k.a. Bangladeshi Sign Language/BdSL) and its place within the SASL region.