Language contact between Israeli sign language and Kufr Qassem sign language

We investigate the contact situation between Israeli Sign Language (ISL) and Kufr Qassem Sign Language (KQSL) in a bilingual deaf community in Israel. We examine one outcome of language contact, known as reiteration - when two semantically equivalent lexical items from two different languages are produced sequentially. Until now, reiteration has been accepted as a clear example of code-switching. Yet, when we find multiple examples of reiteration present in mono lingual signers of KQSL, we ask the following question: Is this a case of code-switching? KQSL monolingual signers produce the signs girl_ISLgirl_KQSLnot as an example of reiteration but rather as a compound with the meaning of "wife." We conclude that, in this case, the sign girl_ISLis borrowed from ISL into a preexisting compound present in KQSL. Using examples from monolingual and bilingual data, we unravel the mystery of the "wife" and the stages of language change it has undergone.