Abstract Many signing communities in countries that once formed part of the Soviet Union share a common deaf institutional history. The sign languages of these communities have been influenced by Russian Sign Language, which was taught and used to varying degrees in Soviet deaf schools. However, little is known about the linguistic histories of the sign languages of the Soviet Union or of the histories of the signing communities within which those languages arose. Here we explore the relationships of Georgian, Russian, and Tajik Sign Languages by comparing aspects of the lexicons and grammars of two signers each from Georgia, Russia, and Tajikistan. We report the results of comparisons of basic vocabulary, basic constituent order, and event representations. The results indicate that (i) Russian and Tajik Sign Languages share more vocabulary than either of those languages share with Georgian Sign Language and that (ii) aspects of the grammar of Georgian and Tajik Sign Languages developed independently of Russian Sign Language. We suggest that this small-scale study could form the basis for a larger comparative investigation of sign languages of the Soviet Union.
Power et al. (2026) studied this question.