KRASNOYARSK, December 11. /TASS/. In 20% of cases, residents of Eastern Siberia reproduce the same words in sign language differently, according to scientists from Siberian Federal University. The results of the study can contribute to the development of a barrier-free environment for deaf and hearing-impaired residents of the region, the press service of the university told TASS on Friday.

Sign language, contrary to common belief, is not universal and has differences depending on the country of residence of its speakers. The research team found that it can vary even within the same region. In their work, the specialists have studied the features of the Russian sign language (RSL) in Eastern Siberia.

"Linguists of the Institute of Philology and Language Communication of Siberian Federal University analyzed the gesture words of people with special speech needs within Eastern Siberia and found significant differences in the variants of the Russian sign language. The results can be used in the development of service products and cultural and social programs aimed at developing an accessible communication environment for people with hearing disabilities," the university told TASS.

Scientists conducted sociolinguistic monitoring, as well as a survey of sign language speakers in the territories of the Krasnoyarsk Region, Tyva, Khakassia and the Irkutsk Region. The informants of the study were people with varying degrees of deafness and sign language interpreters aged 20-50. The authors analyzed how the respondents reproduce the gestures denoting basic everyday words and expressions.

"The share of discrepancies in sign elements that do not coincide in the studied subregions has reached approximately 20%. At the final stage of the project, all revealed discrepancies in the lexical units of RSL in the territories of Eastern Siberia will get systematization. They will be consolidated in the format of an electronic multimodal corpus of regional dialects of Russian sign language", noted the press service.

The scientific work was supported by a grant from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research.