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Indonesian Sign Language

Indonesian Sign Language, known as Bahasa Isyarat Indonesia or BISINDO, is the indigenous sign language naturally developed and primarily used by the deaf community in Indonesia for daily interpersonal communication, featuring multiple regional varieties that reflect local linguistic evolution.^[1]^[2] BISINDO emerged within deaf social networks at least since the early 1950s, independent of formal institutional efforts, and incorporates some lexical influences from American Sign Language, such as certain color terms, while maintaining its own syntactic structures distinct from spoken Indonesian.^[2]^[3] In contrast, Sistem Isyarat Bahasa Indonesia (SIBI) represents an artificial, standardized sign system created for educational settings, which mechanically codes spoken Indonesian grammar and vocabulary rather than supporting a full natural language, leading to its limited adoption outside classrooms despite official promotion.^[4]^[5] Surveys indicate that over 90% of deaf Indonesians prefer BISINDO for authentic interaction, underscoring its role in fostering community cohesion amid a deaf population estimated in the hundreds of thousands to millions, though precise figures remain contested due to varying definitions of deafness and underreporting.^[6]^[7] Defining characteristics include its non-linear word order, reliance on facial expressions and body shifts for grammatical marking, and ongoing vitality through deaf-led organizations like Gerkatin, which advocate for its recognition over imposed standardization efforts that risk eroding natural variation.^[3]^[8]

History

Origins in Pre-Independence Era

The establishment of formal deaf education in the Dutch East Indies during the early 20th century laid the initial foundations for what would become Indonesian Sign Language (BISINDO). The first dedicated school, the Doofstommen Instituut in Bandung (now West Java), was founded in 1930 by C.M. Roelfsema-Wesselink, a Dutch educator, and operated as a private institution under oralist principles imported from the Netherlands.^[9] This approach prioritized lipreading and speech training, prohibiting manual signs in formal instruction to align with prevailing European pedagogical norms that viewed signing as an impediment to spoken language acquisition. A colonial census in 1930 documented 55,800 deaf individuals across the archipelago, highlighting a substantial population that informal signing likely supplemented official methods.^[9] Despite curricular restrictions, deaf students at Bandung and subsequent institutions developed peer-to-peer signing systems organically, forming the embryonic urban varieties of BISINDO. These early signs, documented retrospectively as Isyarat Lama Cicendo—an endangered precursor variety—emerged from necessity-driven interactions among pupils isolated from hearing peers.^[10] Another early school, Dena Upakara in Wonosobo (Central Java), was initiated in 1938 by Catholic Sisters of the Daughters of Mary and Joseph and opened for classes in February 1939, replicating oralist dominance while enabling similar clandestine signing among enrollees.^[9] Direct linguistic influence from Dutch Sign Language (NGT) remains speculative, with no primary records confirming systematic transmission despite colonial administrative ties and potential exposure via Dutch staff; instead, evidence points to indigenous adaptation shaped by local demographics and school environments rather than imported lexicons or grammar.^[9] These pre-independence developments, confined to a handful of urban private schools amid widespread rural isolation, thus prioritized survival-oriented signing over standardized forms, setting a precedent for post-colonial evolution.^[9]

Development in Post-Independence Indonesia (1945–1990s)

Following Indonesia's declaration of independence on August 17, 1945, deaf education expanded through the establishment of additional schools, building on pre-existing institutions like the Doofstommen Instituut in Bandung (founded 1933 under Dutch administration) and Dena Upakara in Wonosobo (1938). New schools emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, including Don Bosco in Wonosobo around 1953, Cendrawasih/Pembina in Makassar in 1958, and institutions in Solo by 1960, fostering urban deaf communities despite predominant oralist policies that prohibited signing in classrooms.^[9] Students developed indigenous sign varieties through peer interactions, integrating gestures from local hearing communities and adapting them into structured systems, as schools emphasized spoken Indonesian but could not suppress informal signing among pupils.^[11] In 1966, the national deaf organization Gerkatin (Perkumpulan Orang-orang Tuli Indonesia) was founded, providing a platform for welfare advocacy, social networking, and inter-regional contacts among deaf individuals, which facilitated the diffusion of signs across Java and beyond through meetings, sports events, and marriages.^[9] By the early 1970s, American Sign Language (ASL) was introduced in Jakarta's first dedicated deaf school (opened 1970), brought by American educators and later reinforced by Peace Corps volunteers and missionaries, influencing lexical borrowing—estimated at around 52% of BISINDO signs by later analyses—while grammar remained shaped by local structures and Indonesian mouthing patterns.^[11] This contact accelerated in the 1980s with the adoption of Total Communication methods in schools like SLB Zinnia in Jakarta and SLB Karya Mulia in Surabaya, blending signing with oral approaches and promoting wider use among younger generations.^[9] Regional variations in BISINDO solidified during this era due to geographic isolation and school-specific networks; for instance, Solo varieties incorporated Javanese-influenced mouthings alongside Indonesian, while Makassar relied primarily on Indonesian mouthings, with differences in signs like negation (TIDAK-ADA in Solo versus TIDAK in Makassar).^[9] Contacts between communities, such as Java-Sulawesi marriages and Gerkatin congresses starting in the 1960s, introduced multidialectalism, particularly among migrants, though older signers (aged 30+) retained more indigenous forms resistant to external standardization.^[9] Government policy remained restrictive until a 1992 directive permitted signing in schools, marking a shift toward bilingual recognition, but BISINDO's core development up to the 1990s occurred organically within deaf-led networks rather than top-down imposition.^[11]

Standardization and Policy Influences (2000s Onward)

In 2002, the Indonesian Sign Language (BISINDO) emerged as a distinct natural sign language amid disputes between the General Association of the Welfare of the Deaf in Indonesia (Gerkatin) and proponents of the structured Sistem Isyarat Bahasa Indonesia (SIBI), with Gerkatin advocating for a community-driven alternative to preserve authentic deaf communication practices.^[12] This development reflected efforts by deaf organizations to foster a sign system rooted in everyday usage rather than imposed grammatical structures mirroring spoken Indonesian. In 2009, the Indonesian Sign Language Center (Pusbisindo) was established in Jakarta to promote BISINDO through teaching programs from basic to advanced levels, emphasizing its adaptive, bottom-up evolution across regions while resisting rigid standardization that could stifle linguistic variation and cultural expression.^[12] By 2022, Pusbisindo had expanded operations to 10 provinces, supporting workshops, resources, and advocacy that complemented but diverged from government initiatives focused on assistive devices and formal education.^[12] Government policies have exerted mixed influences, historically favoring SIBI in educational and official settings for its alignment with national language standardization goals, yet evolving toward broader accessibility. The enactment of Law No. 8 of 2016 on Persons with Disabilities marked a pivotal shift by defining "sign language" to explicitly include BISINDO, mandating its provision alongside other communication aids in public services, education, and legal proceedings to ensure equal access for deaf individuals.^[13] This legislation requires inclusive practices, such as sign language interpretation in schools and government interactions, though implementation varies, with SIBI persisting in many formal curricula due to its established infrastructure.^[14] Despite these provisions, Indonesia had not designated a national sign language by 2021, leading to ongoing advocacy from deaf groups for fuller BISINDO integration and protests against policies perceived as prioritizing artificial systems over natural ones preferred by users.^[15] BISINDO's standardization remains limited and contentious, characterized by regional dialects rather than a unified corpus, as community leaders prioritize flexibility for local adaptations over top-down uniformity.^[16] Efforts like those by Pusbisindo focus on documentation and dissemination through digital tools and clubs, but lack comprehensive lexical codification or nationwide mandates, influenced by policies that support sign language rights without resolving the SIBI-BISINDO divide.^[12] This duality has spurred empirical studies on variation patterns, highlighting BISINDO's social indexing of deaf identity, while policy gaps persist in enforcing consistent use amid resource constraints.^[17]

Linguistic Features

Phonological Structure

The phonological structure of Indonesian Sign Language (BISINDO) aligns with that of established sign languages, comprising discrete parameters or cheremes that combine to form signs: handshape, location, orientation, movement, and non-manual features.^[17]^[11] Handshape, the configuration of the fingers and thumb, serves as the primary distinguishing parameter, with configurations often influenced by indigenous forms alongside borrowings from American Sign Language (ASL), such as initialized signs incorporating finger-spelled Indonesian initials (e.g., "s" for suami 'husband').^[11] Signs are deemed phonologically similar if at least two parameters match, with handshape and movement holding particular weight in lexical differentiation; allophonic variations, like thumb position in the non-dominant hand, are typically overlooked.^[11] Location specifies the place of articulation, commonly in neutral signing space, near the face (e.g., ear or temple for initialized signs), or on the body, with regional dialects exhibiting variable placements that signal social or geographic identity—such as temple versus lower-space variants in kinship terms like SAUDARA 'sibling/relative'.^[17]^[18] Orientation involves palm direction relative to the body or signer, contributing to minimal pairs; for instance, palm-down versus palm-facing-the-signer forms of SAUDARA distinguish Makassar from Javanese varieties while maintaining intelligibility.^[17] Movement encompasses path trajectories, hand-internal motions, speed, and repetition, enabling grammatical encoding (e.g., completive clitics like SUDAH 'finished' that bound to predicates and lose independent movement).^[18] Non-manual features, including facial expressions, eye gaze, head tilts, and mouthings, function both lexically (e.g., tongue protrusion with negation signs for emphasis) and grammatically (e.g., headshakes with manual negation like TIDAK 'not'), often layering with Javanese or Indonesian mouthings to index ethnic or hearing-deaf distinctions.^[17]^[18] Phonological processes include assimilation, where parameters like location or orientation adjust in compounds, and variation driven by sociolinguistic factors: younger urban signers in Solo favor complex forms (e.g., suppletive negations), while corpus data from 38 signers across Solo and Makassar reveal intra-urban shifts in parameter realization tied to identity rather than phonemic minimal pairs.^[17]^[18] This structure supports BISINDO's manual dominance, with non-manuals obligatorily integrated for full propositional meaning, distinguishing it from artificial systems like SIBI.^[18]

Grammar and Syntax

BISINDO employs a grammar independent of spoken Indonesian, featuring topic-comment structures, spatial referencing for arguments, and flexible constituent ordering rather than the rigid subject-verb-object sequence of Bahasa Indonesia.^[2]^[18] This syntactic flexibility allows signers to prioritize topical elements early in utterances, with verbs often incorporating directionality to indicate subject-object agreement, a common trait in urban varieties across Java and other islands.^[18] Negation predominantly follows the predicate in basic clauses, using manual particles such as TIDAK (not) or suppletive forms like TIDAK BISA (cannot), as observed in corpora from cities including Solo and Makassar; for example, a signer might produce "TJ:PRO1 TIDAK BISA" to convey "I cannot do it."^[19] Pre-predicate negation occurs less frequently (approximately 24% of tokens), more often among Solo signers and in complex constructions, reflecting regional and generational variation.^[18] Non-manual markers, including headshakes, accompany these forms, while simultaneous mouthing of negated predicates adds emphasis or clarification in some dialects.^[19] Aspectual and completive marking integrates into syntax via clitics or particles derived from lexical signs, such as variants of SUDAH (finished), which grammaticalize by attaching to verbs (e.g., post-predicate cliticization) or appearing independently; younger signers in Solo favor morphologically elaborate forms, including mouthed completions influenced by local spoken languages like Javanese.^[18] Interrogative constructions rely on question words (e.g., APA for what) positioned flexibly, often with non-manual signals like raised eyebrows, though systematic variation analysis from corpora indicates ongoing grammaticalization processes across urban centers.^[19] Morphosyntactic complexity arises in verb modification, where repetition encodes iterative or distributive aspects, and classifiers depict spatial relations, enabling predicate incorporation of locative or handling information without separate lexical items.^[18] These features underscore BISINDO's divergence from artificial systems like SIBI, which impose spoken Indonesian affixes and linear syntax, prioritizing instead natural, visually motivated encoding evolved within deaf communities since the mid-20th century.^[2]

Lexicon and Vocabulary Sources

The lexicon of Indonesian Sign Language (BISINDO) predominantly originates from gestures shared with the hearing population in Indonesia, including emblems, pantomimes, and representational gestures that deaf communities have grammaticalized into lexical and grammatical elements. For instance, the widespread negation sign TIDAK derives from a common Indonesian gesture denoting refusal or denial, appearing in 377 tokens across varieties with functions such as cliticization and adverbial modification. Similarly, the suppletive negation TIDAK-BOLEH ("not allowed") stems from a gestural emblem prohibiting actions, distinct from the affirmative BOLEH, while TETAS (a palm-up open hand gesture) serves multiple roles including negation and questioning, with at least five documented negative uses in corpora. These sources reflect BISINDO's emergence in the 1950s through deaf associations and schools, where hearing-derived gestures were adapted and conventionalized independently of formal sign systems.^[20] Additional vocabulary incorporates mouthings borrowed from spoken Indonesian and regional languages like Javanese, often co-occurring with manual signs to specify meaning or index social identity. Examples include mouthed sudah (Indonesian for "already/completed") or wis (Javanese equivalent) with completive particles, which vary regionally—such as SUDAH:3 prevalent in Solo (derived possibly from "lost" or "run out") versus SUDAH:4 in Makassar. Completive markers more broadly evolve from lexical sources denoting finality, like "that's all" or "good/ready," evidenced in 299 corpus instances showing cliticization and suppletion among younger signers. Classifiers, such as CL:CARRY-BASKET for handling objects, also borrow from local gestural practices rather than foreign sign languages.^[18] Claims of substantial external influences on BISINDO's core lexicon remain limited and contested, with urban varieties potentially tracing to Dutch-founded deaf schools in the 1930s that facilitated archipelago-wide diffusion via alumni networks, though direct borrowing from Dutch Sign Language (NGT) is undocumented. One analysis posits American Sign Language (ASL) derivation for up to 50% of items in a 2001 Indonesian sign dictionary, particularly initialized color terms (e.g., "blue" with a "b"-handshape), reflecting post-independence exposure through educational materials or international contacts. However, such borrowings appear peripheral, concentrated in formal or color-specific domains, and do not characterize the gesture-based foundation of everyday BISINDO vocabulary, which prioritizes local adaptation over overseas importation.^[18]^[3]

Dialects and Regional Variations

Urban BISINDO Dialects

Urban varieties of BISINDO, used primarily by deaf communities in major Indonesian cities such as Jakarta and Yogyakarta, emerged in Java during the 1950s or earlier through interactions in schools and urban deaf networks, distinct from rural village sign languages.^[19] These dialects exhibit substantial linguistic variation at phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic levels, driven by local social dynamics and historical influences from early missionary-introduced signing systems.^[17] For example, signing varieties in Jakarta and Yogyakarta show differences that raise questions about their status as dialects versus separate languages, with variations often indexing regional identities or signer affiliations within urban deaf populations.^[21] Such urban BISINDO forms are employed by tens to hundreds of thousands of deaf individuals across the archipelago's cities, forming a shared yet regionally diverse system that contrasts with the more isolated village sign languages.^[17] Lexical and grammatical divergences, including adaptations reflecting local spoken language influences, contribute to mutual intelligibility challenges between cities, though core structures maintain cohesion as variants of BISINDO rather than unrelated systems.^[18] Sociolinguistic studies highlight how these variations carry social meanings, such as associations with urban sophistication or community loyalty, influencing usage in everyday communication and deaf organization activities. Standardization initiatives, including the establishment of Pusat Bahasa Isyarat Indonesia (Pusbisindo) in Jakarta in 2009, seek to unify urban dialects by documenting and promoting a national standard, addressing fragmentation for broader accessibility in education and media.^[23] Despite these efforts, empirical analyses reveal persistent inter-urban differences, underscoring the need for variationist approaches in policy to preserve natural evolution while enhancing national cohesion.^[24]

Interactions with Local and Village Sign Languages

Indonesia hosts multiple village sign languages that have developed independently in rural communities with elevated rates of hereditary deafness, distinct from the urban-oriented BISINDO. Notable examples include Kata Kolok, used in Bengkala, northern Bali, where deafness affects approximately 2-3% of the population—far exceeding the global average of 0.1%—and is employed by both deaf and hearing residents for daily communication.^[25] ^[26] These village languages exhibit unique phonological, grammatical, and spatial features, such as Kata Kolok's absolute frame of reference system, which differs markedly from BISINDO's relative referencing and shows low mutual intelligibility between the two.^[27] Interactions between BISINDO and village sign languages arise mainly through education, urbanization, migration, and tourism, facilitating lexical borrowing and code-mixing. Deaf children from villages like Bengkala often attend secondary schools in urban centers such as Singaraja, where BISINDO is the primary medium, leading younger signers to incorporate BISINDO elements into local lexicons and prompting gradual language shift.^[28] ^[25] In BISINDO-speaking urban areas, regional variations may absorb local signs from migrants, reflecting Indonesia's linguistic diversity, though systematic diffusion occurs via deaf alumni networks and technology like mobile phones since the 2010s.^[18] Such contact has sparked ideological tensions, including purist views framing BISINDO or international signs (e.g., ASL introduced by tourists) as "contaminants" to village languages' vitality. In Bengkala, tourism—promoted since around 2010—exposes residents to diverse signing systems, with guides adapting multilingual repertoires for economic gain, yet educators in nearby schools enforce barriers to shield students from foreign influences, prioritizing linguistic boundaries.^[28] Empirical studies document sociolinguistic variation, such as increased formal complexity in contacted village lexicons, but emphasize that isolation sustains village languages' distinctiveness amid broader pressures from national standardization efforts.^[25]^[18]

Distinction from SIBI

Structural and Functional Differences

SIBI, or Sistem Isyarat Bahasa Indonesia, functions as a manually coded system designed to parallel the structure of spoken Indonesian, incorporating discrete signs for lexical items, affixes, prefixes, suffixes, and particles in a sequential manner that mirrors oral syntax and morphology.^[4] This approach requires signers to explicitly represent grammatical elements, such as signing affixes separately (e.g., "me-" for active voice verbs), which aligns with educational goals of reinforcing spoken language literacy but introduces redundancy and complexity in production.^[29] In contrast, BISINDO exhibits the hallmarks of a natural sign language, with syntax that leverages spatial referencing, simultaneous articulation of multiple elements (e.g., via classifiers for movement and shape), and non-manual features like facial expressions and head tilts to convey grammatical relations such as tense, aspect, or negation, independent of spoken Indonesian word order.^[4] ^[17] These structural disparities extend to lexical and phonological levels: SIBI prioritizes initialized signs derived partly from American Sign Language (ASL) but adapted to encode Indonesian morphemes, resulting in a more rigid, linear phonology that emphasizes handshape sequences for affixes.^[30] BISINDO, however, draws from indigenous gestural roots and regional variations, employing iconicity, compounding, and morphosyntactic blending for efficiency, with phonological parameters (handshape, location, movement, orientation, non-manuals) allowing for productive derivation without direct spoken equivalents.^[8] ^[31] Functionally, SIBI supports total communication in formal settings like schools, where it aids in bridging signed input to written/spoken Indonesian, but its spoken-aligned rigidity hinders fluency and natural discourse for congenitally deaf users, who process information visually and spatially rather than sequentially.^[32] BISINDO, used primarily for peer-to-peer interaction, enables richer narrative expression through simultaneity and context-dependency, fostering community cohesion but complicating standardization efforts in policy-driven environments.^[4] Empirical observations indicate SIBI's impracticality for everyday use, as its explicit grammar increases cognitive load, whereas BISINDO's evolved efficiency aligns with deaf signers' linguistic competence.^[33]

Community Preferences and Usage Patterns

Within the Indonesian Deaf community, BISINDO is overwhelmingly preferred for daily interpersonal communication due to its organic development and alignment with innate linguistic acquisition processes, contrasting with SIBI's contrived structure that mirrors spoken Indonesian syntax.^[34]^[35] Surveys and observational studies indicate that Deaf individuals find BISINDO more intuitive, employing bilateral hand movements, facial expressions, and contextual non-manual markers that facilitate fluid expression without rigid word-order adherence.^[36]^[37] Usage patterns reveal a clear bifurcation: BISINDO dominates informal and community-based interactions, such as family gatherings, social events, and peer networks, where approximately 70-80% of Deaf adults in urban areas like Jakarta and Surakarta report primary reliance on it for effective conveyance of nuanced ideas.^[38]^[1] In contrast, SIBI persists in formal educational settings and government-mandated programs, often enforced by hearing educators, leading to code-switching behaviors among Deaf users who revert to BISINDO post-classroom for authentic discourse.^[39] This preference stems from empirical observations of higher comprehension rates with BISINDO—up to 25% faster acquisition in community training sessions compared to SIBI—attributed to its phonological and syntactic independence from auditory norms.^[35] Advocacy efforts by organizations like Gerkatin (the Indonesian Deaf Association) underscore community resistance to SIBI's hegemony, with petitions in 2020 demanding policy shifts toward BISINDO recognition to preserve cultural autonomy and reduce alienation in learning environments.^[40] Regional variations influence adoption, as rural Deaf clusters favor localized BISINDO dialects for intragroup cohesion, while urban migrants blend elements but maintain aversion to SIBI's uniformity, viewing it as a tool of assimilation rather than empowerment.^[1]^[37]

Legal Status and Recognition

Governmental Recognition Efforts

The Indonesian government officially endorsed SIBI (Sistem Isyarat Bahasa Indonesia) as the standardized sign system for formal use, particularly in education, following its development in the early 1990s by hearing educators adapting elements from American Sign Language to Indonesian grammar.^[39]^[34] By 1994, SIBI was implemented as the primary communication tool in deaf schools under the Ministry of Education, reflecting a policy emphasis on a structured, code-based system aligned with spoken Indonesian rather than community-developed varieties like BISINDO.^[39]^[5] Undang-Undang Nomor 8 Tahun 2016 tentang Penyandang Disabilitas explicitly recognizes sign language as a protected form of communication for deaf individuals, mandating accessibility in public services, education, and legal proceedings without specifying a particular system.^[41]^[42] This law requires government agencies to provide sign language interpreters and inclusive policies, but implementation has predominantly relied on SIBI, as evidenced by its integration into national training programs for public servants and media broadcasting standards.^[41]^[34] Despite these frameworks, BISINDO has not achieved formal governmental recognition as of 2025, with policies continuing to prioritize SIBI for standardization amid concerns over BISINDO's regional variations.^[37] In August 2025, the Ministry of Coordinating Human Development and Culture urged strengthened use of "Bahasa Isyarat Nasional" to promote inclusivity, but this initiative has not explicitly shifted endorsement toward BISINDO, maintaining the status quo favoring SIBI in official contexts.^[41] Deaf advocacy groups, including those aligned with Gerkatin, have petitioned for BISINDO's authorization since at least 2020, arguing its natural development better serves community needs, yet no legislative or ministerial decree has materialized to replace SIBI.^[40]^[5]

International Context and Comparisons

BISINDO, the primary sign language of Indonesia's Deaf communities, exemplifies the global phenomenon of sign languages evolving as independent visual-spatial systems, uninfluenced by the phonology of co-territorial spoken languages like Indonesian. Like American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL), BISINDO employs topic-comment syntax, classifier predicates for spatial relations, and simultaneous articulation of manual and non-manual features, enabling efficient depiction of motion and location. These structural parallels arise from universal cognitive constraints on visual-gestural modality rather than direct descent, with empirical studies confirming low lexical similarity (under 20%) between BISINDO variants and ASL despite superficial resemblances in isolated signs.^[11]^[4] Lexical borrowing distinguishes BISINDO from more insular sign languages, such as those in rural village communities worldwide (e.g., Kata Kolok in Bali), with documented influences from ASL introduced via 20th-century missionary education and international Deaf exchanges, affecting approximately 10-15% of vocabulary in urban dialects, particularly in manual alphabets and loan signs for abstract concepts. In contrast, European-origin sign languages like French Sign Language (LSF) show genealogical ties through historical spread via schools for the Deaf, whereas BISINDO's development reflects localized emergence amid Indonesia's linguistic diversity, yielding dialects with 40-60% lexical divergence akin to regional variations in Nigerian or Japanese sign languages.^[3]^[11] Internationally, BISINDO lacks the formal governmental codification seen in languages like ASL (recognized by the U.S. in educational policy since the 1960s) or New Zealand Sign Language (official status since 2006), remaining community-sustained amid tensions with Indonesia's artificial SIBI system, a pattern echoed in WFD critiques of top-down standardization efforts that undermine natural languages' vitality. The World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), representing over 70 million Deaf individuals globally, prioritizes advocacy for endogenous sign languages like BISINDO in policy forums, including UN conventions on disability rights, though Indonesia's participation emphasizes SIBI in official translations, highlighting discrepancies between state preferences and community usage. Comparative data from WFD-aligned surveys indicate BISINDO's user base (estimated 100,000-200,000 proficient signers) aligns with mid-sized national languages, yet its dialectal fragmentation poses challenges for cross-border intelligibility, unlike more unified systems in smaller nations.^[43]^[44]

Usage in Education and Society

Implementation in Schools

In formal deaf education in Indonesia, governmental policy has historically prioritized Sistem Isyarat Bahasa Indonesia (SIBI), an artificial signed system aligned with spoken Indonesian grammar, over Bahasa Isyarat Indonesia (BISINDO), limiting the latter's structured implementation in public and many special schools.^[16] SIBI was developed in the 1970s and formalized as the mandated medium for instruction to facilitate bilingual education integrating sign with oral Indonesian, with curricula requiring its use for subjects like mathematics and sciences in institutions under the Ministry of Education.^[45] This approach, intended to bridge deaf students to national language standards, has resulted in BISINDO being largely confined to informal peer communication or extracurricular settings rather than core classroom pedagogy.^[46] Community-driven initiatives, particularly through organizations like Gerkatin (Gerakan untuk Kesejahteraan Tuna Rungu Indonesia), have introduced BISINDO into select language-focused classes, as observed in Surakarta programs where it supports natural acquisition of Indonesian vocabulary and grammar among deaf learners.^[1] In these contexts, BISINDO's topic-comment structure—diverging from SIBI's subject-verb-object mimicry—enables more intuitive expression, with teachers employing visual aids and repetition to teach approximately 500-1,000 basic signs tailored to school-age children.^[47] Enrollment in such Gerkatin-affiliated sessions, often held alongside formal schooling, reached hundreds of students annually by 2023, though scalability remains constrained by funding and trainer certification limited to deaf-led workshops.^[48] Empirical assessments indicate inconsistent BISINDO integration even in inclusive schools, where teachers report blending it with SIBI for assignments and daily interactions, achieving partial comprehension gains but highlighting proficiency gaps; for instance, a 2024 survey found only 9% of deaf students primarily using SIBI in practice, with BISINDO dominating 91% of peer exchanges despite policy directives.^[49]^[50] Advocacy from deaf associations since 2014 has pushed for BISINDO's curricular inclusion to enhance literacy rates, which lag at under 20% for deaf youth per national data, arguing that SIBI's rigidity impedes causal language development rooted in visual-spatial cognition.^[45] No nationwide policy shift toward BISINDO adoption in schools had occurred by 2025, with implementation reliant on local NGO pilots rather than systemic reform.^[37]

Barriers to Adoption and Empirical Outcomes

Despite governmental efforts to standardize sign language in education through SIBI, the adoption of BISINDO—the natural sign language preferred by Indonesia's deaf community—faces significant policy-driven barriers. Official curricula in special education schools prioritize SIBI, an artificial system derived from spoken Indonesian grammar and incorporating elements from American Sign Language, which creates a disconnect with the visual-spatial structure of BISINDO that aligns more closely with deaf users' intuitive communication needs.^[1]^[40] This imposition leads to dual-language confusion, as deaf students encounter SIBI in formal settings but revert to BISINDO in community interactions, hindering consistent language development.^[46] Teacher proficiency represents another key obstacle, with many educators lacking fluency in BISINDO due to inadequate training programs that emphasize SIBI or oralist methods over natural sign languages. Surveys indicate that while teachers may employ a mix of spoken Indonesian, SIBI, and BISINDO, inconsistent application and limited resources for BISINDO-specific materials exacerbate communication gaps in classrooms.^[51]^[52] External factors, including rigid national curricula and insufficient funding for deaf-specific pedagogy, further impede integration, as schools struggle to adapt to regional BISINDO variations influenced by local dialects and village sign languages.^[47] Family involvement is also limited, with hearing parents often unfamiliar with BISINDO, reinforcing reliance on suboptimal school-based systems.^[52] Empirical studies reveal suboptimal educational outcomes tied to this mismatch, with deaf students exhibiting low Indonesian literacy rates attributed to the cognitive dissonance between SIBI's linear structure and BISINDO's holistic signing. In a 2023 analysis of writing skills at a special needs junior high school, internal barriers like sign-Indonesian code-mixing correlated with persistent literacy deficits, while external curricular constraints amplified these issues, resulting in below-average academic proficiency.^[52] Community surveys report that 91% of deaf individuals favor BISINDO for its accessibility and cultural relevance, yet formal education's SIBI focus yields higher dropout rates and reduced comprehension in subjects like mathematics and science, as evidenced by qualitative observations in Surakarta classrooms where BISINDO facilitated better peer interaction but was sidelined in instruction.^[53]^[1] Longitudinal data from inclusive and special schools indicate that without BISINDO incorporation, deaf learners experience delayed language acquisition, with only marginal improvements in standardized test scores when SIBI is rigidly enforced; in contrast, informal BISINDO use outside school correlates with stronger social cohesion but does not translate to formal literacy gains.^[54] These outcomes underscore a causal link between language-system misalignment and broader socioeconomic challenges, including limited employment prospects, as deaf graduates trained primarily in SIBI struggle with community-based communication.^[46] Recent pilots integrating BISINDO elements show promise for enhanced engagement, but scalability remains constrained by policy inertia.^[55]

Debates and Controversies

Natural vs. Artificial Sign Systems

BISINDO, the predominant natural sign language of Indonesia's Deaf communities, emerged organically through intergenerational transmission among deaf individuals, developing distinct grammatical structures independent of spoken Indonesian, including topic-comment syntax, spatial classifiers for describing relationships, and regional dialects reflecting local cultural variations.^[1]^[56] In contrast, SIBI functions as an artificial sign system, engineered in the late 1970s by hearing educators under the Indonesian Ministry of Education to mirror the lexicon and linear word order of spoken Indonesian, assigning a one-to-one correspondence between signs and spoken words or affixes without incorporating native sign grammar.^[30]^[32] Linguistically, natural systems like BISINDO exhibit productivity and iconicity evolved from community use, enabling efficient expression of complex ideas through simultaneous articulation of manual, non-manual, and spatial elements, whereas artificial systems like SIBI prioritize rote representation of spoken syntax, resulting in sequential, less fluid signing that demands verbatim translation and suppresses innate sign language processing.^[57] Empirical observations in Indonesian Deaf settings reveal that signers produce BISINDO spontaneously in informal interactions, with studies documenting its prevalence in daily communication across regions like Java and Sulawesi, while SIBI appears predominantly in controlled educational contexts but often hybridizes with BISINDO elements due to its cognitive demands.^[58]^[59] Debates center on efficacy, with evidence from classroom implementations indicating that artificial systems hinder language acquisition; for instance, Deaf learners exposed primarily to SIBI demonstrate slower development of narrative skills and comprehension compared to those using BISINDO, as the former's rigid structure conflicts with the visual-spatial modality's natural affordances, leading to higher error rates in sign production and reduced fluency.^[1] Community surveys and sociolinguistic analyses further show overwhelming preference for BISINDO among Deaf adults, who report it as more accessible for identity formation and social cohesion, underscoring artificial systems' role in perpetuating hearing-centric policies over endogenous linguistic evolution.^[57]^[60] This disparity aligns with global patterns in sign linguistics, where imposed codes fail to match the generative capacity of community-derived languages, though Indonesian policy continues emphasizing SIBI for standardization despite these outcomes.^[61]

Impact on Deaf Community Autonomy

The coexistence of BISINDO, the indigenous sign language developed organically by Indonesia's Deaf communities, and SIBI, a government-initiated manual coding system for spoken Indonesian, has created tensions in linguistic self-governance. BISINDO emerged from grassroots interactions among Deaf individuals, enabling culturally attuned communication independent of hearing norms, whereas SIBI was formalized in the 1970s by the Ministry of Education to align signing with oral language structures for classroom use.^[62]^[34] This duality undermines Deaf autonomy by prioritizing state-driven standardization over community-derived expression, as SIBI's rigid mapping to Indonesian vocabulary often restricts idiomatic signing and fosters dependency on hearing educators' interpretations.^[46] Empirical observations indicate that SIBI's dominance in formal settings, such as special education schools serving over 2.5 million Deaf Indonesians, correlates with reduced communicative fluency and social isolation. Deaf students, accustomed to BISINDO in peer interactions, report confusion and incomplete language acquisition when compelled to use SIBI, which lacks the grammatical depth of a full language and reinforces assimilationist policies reminiscent of pre-2016 oralism mandates.^[12]^[63]^[64] Such imposition erodes self-determination, as it privileges hearing-centric metrics of "success"—like lip-reading or spoken mimicry—over Deaf-led cultural transmission, evidenced by advocacy groups documenting higher dropout rates and mental health barriers in SIBI-reliant programs.^[65]^[46] Conversely, BISINDO's promotion bolsters community autonomy by facilitating unmediated internal discourse and identity formation. As a naturally evolved system, it supports richer narrative structures and regional variants, allowing Deaf Indonesians to negotiate social roles without external linguistic mediation, as seen in community theaters and activism where BISINDO enables self-advocacy on issues like disability rights under Law No. 8 of 2016.^[66]^[59] Surveys and ethnographic studies highlight its role in fostering solidarity, with Deaf-led organizations pushing for its integration into media and public services to counter SIBI's homogenizing effects.^[63]^[67] Ongoing debates underscore that true autonomy requires policy shifts toward BISINDO primacy, as dual-system policies dilute community agency and perpetuate hearing-dominated oversight. While government recognitions since 2020 have acknowledged BISINDO's status, implementation lags, with Deaf activists arguing that sustained SIBI enforcement risks long-term cultural erosion unless countered by empirical validation of natural sign languages' superiority for cognitive and social development.^[62]^[46]^[63]

Recent Technological Developments

AI and Recognition Systems (2020–2025)

Research on AI-driven recognition systems for Indonesian Sign Language variants, including BISINDO (the community-preferred natural system) and SIBI (the government-standardized structured system), accelerated between 2020 and 2025, driven by advancements in computer vision and deep learning. These systems primarily employed hybrid models combining convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for spatial feature extraction with long short-term memory (LSTM) networks for temporal sequence modeling, enabling real-time gesture detection via webcam or mobile devices. MediaPipe, an open-source framework for hand landmark estimation, emerged as a common preprocessing tool to track key points on hands and faces, facilitating input to machine learning classifiers.^[68]^[69]^[70] For BISINDO, a 2024 deep learning framework was developed to recognize static and dynamic signs, achieving improved accuracy over traditional methods by leveraging transfer learning from pre-trained models like VGG-16, with applications targeted at mobile translators for deaf-hearing communication. A hybrid CNN-LSTM model, introduced in the same period, focused on alphabetical gestures, reporting recognition rates suitable for real-time interpretation on edge devices. By September 2024, the 1DCNNTrans model was proposed for BISINDO translation apps, integrating one-dimensional CNNs to simplify deployment in educational tools and dictionaries, emphasizing accessibility for non-expert users. A systematic literature review published in December 2023 analyzed over a dozen studies, concluding that CNN-LSTM combinations yielded the highest precision for BISINDO datasets, though challenges persisted in handling regional variations and non-manual markers like facial expressions.^[69]^[71]^[72] SIBI-focused efforts paralleled these, with a 2025 LSTM-MediaPipe system designed for sign detection, incorporating hand gesture sequences to translate into Indonesian text, tested on datasets of basic signs and sentences. Real-time SIBI recognition via CNN-SVM hybrids was demonstrated in August 2025, prioritizing efficiency for low-resource hardware and achieving viable performance on affix, alphabet, number, and word gestures. Vision Transformer (ViT) models were applied to SIBI alphabet classification in June 2025, outperforming CNN baselines in handling image-based inputs from static datasets. Datasets such as the SIBI corpus, released around 2025, supported these models by providing annotated videos of signs with facial expressions and grammatical structures.^[68]^[73]^[74] Overall, these systems addressed communication barriers but highlighted limitations, including dataset scarcity for BISINDO's dialectal diversity and dependency on controlled lighting for computer vision accuracy, with peer-reviewed evaluations underscoring the need for larger, diverse training corpora to enhance generalization. No widespread commercial deployments occurred by 2025, as prototypes remained in academic and prototype stages.^[30]^[75]

Digital Resources and Accessibility Tools

Digital resources for Indonesian Sign Language (BISINDO) primarily consist of mobile applications designed for learning, dictionary access, and basic communication support. The Belajar BISINDO app, updated on October 9, 2025, provides interactive vocabulary modules and quizzes to teach core signs, targeting users seeking self-paced education in BISINDO gestures.^[76] Similarly, Kamus BISINDO offers a video library demonstrating signs visually, enabling users to reference movements for over 1,000 terms as of its May 27, 2025 release.^[77] These apps emphasize video demonstrations over static images, aligning with the visual-spatial nature of sign languages, though they remain limited to offline or basic online functionality without real-time integration.^[78] Accessibility tools have advanced through AI-driven recognition systems, particularly prototypes and apps converting BISINDO gestures to text or speech. The SIBISA application, released in August 2021, facilitates communication by interpreting static BISINDO signs via camera input, aiding interactions between deaf and hearing users in everyday settings.^[79] More recent developments include BisindoMate, a 2024 translator leveraging AMD Ryzen AI hardware and custom BISINDO datasets for gesture-to-text conversion, tested for practical deployment in Indonesia.^[80] An Android-based real-time alphabet recognizer using MobileNetV3, documented in 2023, achieves recognition of all 26 BISINDO letters with reported accuracy exceeding 95% on mobile devices, serving as a foundational tool for literacy aids.^[81] Ongoing research integrates deep learning for broader accessibility, such as CNN-LSTM models for dynamic sign sequences, yielding up to 98% accuracy in controlled tests for BISINDO words.^[5] YOLOv8 and CNN combinations in 2025 prototypes enable interpreter systems for video input, potentially expandable to public apps despite current hardware dependencies.^[82] Government-backed initiatives, including SIBIKU and Belajar BISINDO platforms promoted by Jakarta's smart city program in September 2025, distribute these tools via official channels to promote inclusive education, though adoption remains constrained by rural internet access and dataset limitations in non-urban dialects.^[34]

Role in Deaf Identity and Community

Indonesian Sign Language (BISINDO), as the indigenous sign language developed organically within Indonesia's Deaf community, serves as a cornerstone of cultural and linguistic identity, distinguishing Deaf Indonesians as a linguistic minority rather than merely a disability group. Unlike the artificial Sistem Isyarat Bahasa Indonesia (SIBI), which was engineered by hearing educators to mirror spoken Indonesian syntax and is often critiqued for its rigidity and limited expressiveness, BISINDO enables fluid, context-rich communication that aligns with Deaf cognitive and social patterns. This natural modality fosters a sense of shared heritage, with an estimated 2.5 million Deaf individuals relying on it for interpersonal bonds and collective self-expression.^[12]^[34]^[67] In Deaf organizations such as Gerkatin (Perkumpulan Orang Tuli Indonesia), BISINDO underpins community activities, including language classes in regions like Surakarta, where it facilitates discussions on Deaf rights and daily life without the constraints of spoken-language imposition. Deaf activists, including figures like Hasna Mufidah, leverage BISINDO in art, storytelling, and advocacy to challenge systemic barriers, portraying Deaf experiences through narratives that highlight linguistic autonomy and cultural resilience. This usage reinforces group cohesion, as BISINDO's regional variations—emerging from local Deaf interactions—mirror Indonesia's linguistic diversity, promoting pride in a uniquely national Deaf ethos over standardized hearing-centric systems.^[1]^[83] Deaf youth movements have increasingly framed BISINDO as essential to community empowerment, advocating its official recognition since at least 2020 to counter SIBI's dominance in education and policy, which they argue erodes natural language acquisition and cultural transmission. Empirical observations from community workshops and training programs indicate that BISINDO proficiency expands social networks, enabling active participation in Deaf-led events and reducing isolation from hearing society. By prioritizing BISINDO, the community asserts causal agency in identity formation, viewing it as a vehicle for intergenerational continuity and resistance against assimilationist pressures.^[40]^[67]

Broader Societal Integration Challenges

The primary obstacle to BISINDO's societal integration lies in its lack of official recognition, with the Indonesian government mandating SIBI—an artificial, one-handed system derived from spoken Indonesian grammar—instead of the two-handed, naturally developed BISINDO favored by the deaf community for its expressiveness and ease of use.^[40] This policy duality fosters confusion among deaf users, as evidenced by responsiveness rates of 91% to BISINDO versus 8% to SIBI in testing, undermining effective communication and literacy development from an early age.^[46] Consequently, deaf students exhibit delayed skills, such as 17- to 18-year-olds performing at the writing level of 9- to 10-year-old hearing peers, which perpetuates cycles of educational exclusion and limits progression to higher education where trained lecturers and interpreters are scarce.^[40] Communication barriers rooted in low societal proficiency with BISINDO extend to employment and public services, where deaf individuals encounter discrimination portraying them as intellectually inferior or incompetent, compounded by intersecting factors like gender and poverty.^[84] These issues restrict job opportunities and access to services, including media lacking subtitles or interpreters—local films often omit Indonesian captions despite availability in foreign content—and bureaucratic hurdles in advocacy.^[85] Public awareness remains deficient, with minimal socialization of deaf culture and sign language, viewing deafness primarily through a medical lens rather than a linguistic one, which isolates the community and prioritizes hearing-centric norms over inclusive practices.^[85]^[40] Legal protections, such as the 2016 Act on Persons with Disabilities, affirm rights against discrimination but falter in enforcement, lacking standardized interpreter certification and adequate facilities, leading many deaf individuals to revert to special schools despite inclusive education mandates.^[46]^[14] Ongoing campaigns, like Telkomsel's 2023 #AkuPakaiBISINDO initiative, highlight these inequities by demonstrating how silenced audio content mirrors deaf experiences, yet systemic inertia persists without policy shifts toward BISINDO authorization.^[86]

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