American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is expressed by employing both manual and nonmanual features. Besides North America, dialects of ASL and ASL-based creoles are used in many countries around the world, including much of West Africa and parts of Southeast Asia. ASL is also widely learned as a second language, serving as a lingua franca. ASL is most closely related to French Sign Language (LSF). It has been proposed that ASL is a creole language of LSF, although ASL shows features atypical of creole languages, such as agglutinative morphology.
New Zealand Sign Language or NZSL is the main language of the deaf community in New Zealand. It became an official language of New Zealand in April 2006 under the New Zealand Sign Language Act 2006. The purpose of the act was to create rights and obligations in the use of NZSL throughout the legal system and to ensure that the Deaf community had the same access to government information and services as everybody else. According to the 2013 Census, over 20,000 New Zealanders know NZSL.
Adamorobe Sign Language or Adasl is a village sign language used in Adamorobe, an Akan village in eastern Ghana. It is used by about 30 deaf and 1370 hearing people (2003).
The Tallensi Traditional Area is a region of northern Ghana, and home to the Tallensi people. It is mainly covered in open savanna. Villages in the area include Gbeogo.
Israeli Sign Language, also known as Shassi or ISL, is the most commonly used sign language by the Deaf community of Israel. Some other sign languages are also used in Israel, among them Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language.
Kata Kolok, also known as Benkala Sign Language and Balinese Sign Language, is a village sign language which is indigenous to two neighbouring villages in northern Bali, Indonesia. The main village, Bengkala, has had high incidences of deafness for over seven generations. Notwithstanding the biological time depth of the recessive mutation that causes deafness, the first substantial cohort of deaf signers did not occur until five generations ago, and this event marks the emergence of Kata Kolok. The sign language has been acquired by at least five generations of deaf, native signers and features in all aspects of village life, including political, professional, educational, and religious settings.
Chinese Sign Language is the official sign language of the People's Republic of China. It is unrelated to Taiwanese Sign Language and is known in the Republic of China as Wénfǎ Shǒuyǔ.
The Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf (MSAD) is a public residential school serving deaf children in Minnesota, United States. It is one of two Minnesota State Academies in Faribault and operated by the state for particular student populations.
The Nebraska School for the Deaf, or NSD, was a residential school for Deaf students in kindergarten through Grade Twelve at 3223 North 45th Street in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Founded in 1869, the school closed in 1998. The school attracted national attention throughout its existence, first for controversial teaching practices and then for its closure.
Salvadoran Sign language is a language used by the deaf community in El Salvador. Its main purpose is to communicate. There are three distinct forms of sign language. American Sign Language was brought over to El Salvador from the United States by missionaries who set up small communal schools for the deaf. The government has also created a school for the deaf, teaching by means of their own modified Salvadoran Sign Language. The third type of sign language used is a combination of American Sign Language and Salvadoran Sign language. Most deaf understand and rely upon both. Their own unique Salvadoran Sign language is based on their language and is most useful in regular encounters; however, American Sign Language is often relied on within education due to the larger and more specific vocabulary. This is the reason that the deaf community within El Salvador sometimes relies upon both ASL and SSL in a combined form.
Texas School for the Deaf (TSD) is a state-operated primary and secondary school for deaf children in Austin, Texas. Opened in 1857 "in an old frame house, three log cabins, and a smokehouse", it is the oldest continually-operated public school in Texas. The school struggled under inadequate funding during the American Civil War, and its aftermath, with the students eating food that they grew themselves on the school farm. In 1951 the State Board of Education assumed oversight of the school.
Ovingdean Hall School (OHS) was a special day and boarding secondary school for the severely and profoundly deaf children and young people including those with additional special needs. It closed in July 2010.
The Japanese Sign Language (JSL) family is a language family of three sign languages: Japanese Sign Language (JSL), Korean Sign Language (KSL), and Taiwanese Sign Language (TSL).
Bura Sign Language is a village sign language used by the Bura people around the village of Kukurpu, 40 km south-east of Biu, Nigeria, an area with a high degree of congenital deafness. What little is known about it is due to a brief visit and a videotape by Robert Blench in 2003. It is "likely ... quite independent" from other, better-known sign languages such as Nigerian Sign Language, since none of the signers have been to school and the area where it is used is rather remote.
Alipur Sign Language is a village sign language of India. It is spoken in the town of Alipur, Karnataka, a Shia Muslim enclave with a high degree of congenital deafness. There are between 150 and 250 deaf people in Alipur, and there are approximately 10,000 hearing people speaking the language on a population of 26,000. The language has no official status and deaf children receive no formal education. This fact plus the increasing influence of the Indian Sign Language threaten the survival of Alipur Sign Language. Sibaji Panda was the first person to officially document the language in 2012.
Black American Sign Language (BASL) or Black Sign Variation (BSV) is a dialect of American Sign Language (ASL) used most commonly by deaf African Americans in the United States. The divergence from ASL was influenced largely by the segregation of schools in the American South. Like other schools at the time, schools for the deaf were segregated based upon race, creating two language communities among deaf signers: white deaf signers at white schools and black deaf signers at black schools. As of the mid 2010s, BASL is still used by signers in the South despite public schools having been legally desegregated since 1954.
American Sign Language (ASL) developed in the United States and Canada, but has spread around the world. Local varieties have developed in many countries, but there is little research on which should be considered dialects of ASL and which have diverged to the point of being distinct languages.
47 The American Sign Language and English Secondary School, is a public high school for the deaf in Kips Bay, Manhattan, New York City. Operated by the New York City Department of Education, it was previously known as "47" The American Sign Language and English Dual Language High School, Junior High School 47M, School for the Deaf, or Junior High School 47.
Ghana