lines and number next to each line indicate how many focus groups made the same statement. If there is no line connecting two cities, no focus groups told us that those cities signed the same. We can see from
the chart that language variation is centered in roughly three areas: the northwest Transylvania, Moldavia, and the southern Wallachia region. While this tool does not define the Moldavia and
Wallachia regions as clearly as Transylvania, it serves to triangulate our findings from the SLQ and suggests that signers in Transylvania sign more like each other than elsewhere in the country.
Figure 4. Dialect Network Analysis results.
4.4 Dialect prestige
Using the SLQ, we asked participants to identify the regions with which they found communication to be easiest. The goal of this was primarily to measure dialect prestige. Participants showed a strong
preference for communicating with other cities in close proximity to their hometown, which suggests two possibilities. First, that there is in fact dialectal variation within Romania, and second, that there is
not an overriding desire to learn a more prestigious dialect from a larger city or more prestigious school, as is often the case.
Additionally, travel and communication between regions seems to be very common; both the SLQ and participant observation confirmed regular meetings between associations and individuals all over
Romania, for purposes such as sports, parties, rallies, camps, Bible studies, contests, lotteries, and just visiting friends. When asked if deaf people from their region interact with other parts of Romania,
participant responses were 100 affirmative. Finally, we asked participants whether or not they wanted all deaf people in Romania to sign the same; responses were strongly affirmative, at over 77. See
figure 5 for a summary of all the responses.
Figure 5. Do you want all deaf people in Romania to sign the same?
4.5 Summary
In summary, we can conclude that there is significant evidence of language variation within Romania. The largest differences can be seen between Transylvania and the rest of the country, as supported by
participant observation, questionnaires, wordlists, and dialect network analysis. The extent of the variation and the impact it has on understanding fall mostly outside the scope of this survey; our primary
tool for measuring this is the opinion and perception of our participants, which is inherently subjective. Also, we must distinguish between oral or signed communication, in the form of conversation or
storytelling, and published communication, in the form of video publications. Face-to-face communication will almost always contain some level of negotiation, and will vary from person to
person, depending on their background, their relationship with the other party, and a host of other factors, making evaluation of language variation between sign language variants very difficult. In light of
this, we must make our “best guess” regarding the amount of difference between two varieties, and rely heavily on subjective means of evaluation until community testing and more detailed analysis of larger
bodies of data can be completed.
5 Language use
Here we discuss our data on language use, acquisition, and attitudes, using primarily interview and sociolinguistics questionnaire data. We find this data is useful for understanding the vitality of the
language and the deaf community in Romania.
5.1 Language acquisition
