Kata Kolok also known as Benkala Sign Language and Balinese Sign Language, is a sign language

Sign language

A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...

 of the village of Benkala in northern Bali

Bali

Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...

, Indonesia, that has had an extraordinarily high rate of deafness for several generations. As has happened elsewhere in similar circumstances, deaf and hearing

Hearing (person)

The term hearing or hearing person, from the perspective of mainstream English-language culture, refers to someone whose sense of hearing is at the medical norm. From this point of view, someone who is not fully hearing has a hearing impairment or is said to be hard of hearing or deaf. The...

 people in the village have developed a sign language for communication.

Kata Kolok is unrelated to spoken Balinese

Balinese language

Balinese or simply Bali is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by 3.3 million people on the Indonesian island of Bali, as well as northern Nusa Penida, western Lombok and eastern Java...

 and lacks certain contact sign

Contact Sign

A contact sign language, or contact sign, is a variety or style of language that arises from contact between a deaf sign language and a spoken language...

 phenomena that often arise when a sign language and a spoken language are in close contact, such as fingerspelling

Fingerspelling

Fingerspelling is the representation of the letters of a writing system, and sometimes numeral systems, using only the hands. These manual alphabets , have often been used in deaf education, and have subsequently been adopted as a distinct part of a number of sign languages around the world...

 and mouthing

Mouthing

In sign language, mouthing is the production of visual syllables with the mouth while signing. Although not present in all sign languages, and sometimes not in signers at all levels of education, where it does occur it may be an essential element of a sign, distinguishing signs which would...

. It is also unrelated to other sign languages. It differs from other known sign languages in a number of respects: Signers make extensive use of cardinal directions and real-world locations to organise the signing space, and they do not use a metaphorical “time line” for time reference. For subject-object marking, Kata Kolok uses strict word order instead of spatial agreement verbs.

Deaf people in the village express themselves using special cultural forms such as deaf dance and martial arts

Martial arts

Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development....

and occupy special ritual and social roles, including digging graves and maintaining water pipes.