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American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of deaf communities in the United States 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.
Sign languages are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign languages are full-fledged natural languages with their own grammar and lexicon. Sign languages are not universal and are usually not mutually intelligible, although there are similarities among different sign languages.
British Sign Language (BSL) is a sign language used in the United Kingdom and is the first or preferred language among the deaf community in the UK. While private correspondence from William Stokoe hinted at a formal name for the language in 1960, the first usage of the term "British Sign Language" in an academic publication was likely by Aaron Cicourel. Based on the percentage of people who reported 'using British Sign Language at home' on the 2011 Scottish Census, the British Deaf Association estimates there are 151,000 BSL users in the UK, of whom 87,000 are Deaf. By contrast, in the 2011 England and Wales Census 15,000 people living in England and Wales reported themselves using BSL as their main language. People who are not deaf may also use BSL, as hearing relatives of deaf people, sign language interpreters or as a result of other contact with the British Deaf community. The language makes use of space and involves movement of the hands, body, face and head.
Makaton is a communication tool with speech, signs, and symbols to enable people with disabilities or learning disabilities to communicate. Makaton supports the development of essential communication skills such as attention, listening, comprehension, memory and expressive speech and language. The Makaton language programme has been used with individuals who have cognitive impairments, autism, Down syndrome, specific language impairment, multisensory impairment and acquired neurological disorders that have negatively affected the ability to communicate, including stroke and dementia patients.
Signing Exact English is a system of manual communication that strives to be an exact representation of English language vocabulary and grammar. It is one of a number of such systems in use in English-speaking countries. It is related to Seeing Essential English (SEE-I), a manual sign system created in 1945, based on the morphemes of English words. SEE-II models much of its sign vocabulary from American Sign Language (ASL), but modifies the handshapes used in ASL in order to use the handshape of the first letter of the corresponding English word.
Cued speech is a visual system of communication used with and among deaf or hard-of-hearing people. It is a phonemic-based system which makes traditionally spoken languages accessible by using a small number of handshapes, known as cues, in different locations near the mouth to convey spoken language in a visual format. The National Cued Speech Association defines cued speech as "a visual mode of communication that uses hand shapes and placements in combination with the mouth movements and speech to make the phonemes of spoken language look different from each other." It adds information about the phonology of the word that is not visible on the lips. This allows people with hearing or language difficulties to visually access the fundamental properties of language. It is now used with people with a variety of language, speech, communication, and learning needs. It is not a sign language such as American Sign Language (ASL), which is a separate language from English. Cued speech is considered a communication modality but can be used as a strategy to support auditory rehabilitation, speech articulation, and literacy development.
A multitude of languages have always been spoken in Canada. Prior to Confederation, the territories that would become Canada were home to over 70 distinct languages across 12 or so language families. Today, a majority of those indigenous languages are still spoken; however, most are endangered and only about 0.6% of the Canadian population report an Indigenous language as their mother tongue. Since the establishment of the Canadian state, English and French have been the co-official languages and are, by far, the most-spoken languages in the country.
The American Manual Alphabet (AMA) is a manual alphabet that augments the vocabulary of American Sign Language.
Hawaiʻi Sign Language or Hawaiian Sign Language, also known as Hoailona ʻŌlelo, Old Hawaiʻi Sign Language and Hawaiʻi Pidgin Sign Language, is an indigenous sign language native to Hawaiʻi. Historical records document its presence on the islands as early as the 1820s, but HSL was not formally recognized by linguists until 2013.
Manually Coded English (MCE) is an umbrella term referring to a number of invented manual codes intended to visually represent the exact grammar and morphology of spoken English. Different codes of MCE vary in the levels of adherence to spoken English grammar, morphology, and syntax. MCE is typically used in conjunction with direct spoken English.
Simultaneous communication, SimCom, or sign supported speech (SSS) is a technique sometimes used by deaf, hard-of-hearing or hearing sign language users in which both a spoken language and a manual variant of that language are used simultaneously. While the idea of communicating using two modes of language seems ideal in a hearing/deaf setting, in practice the two languages are rarely relayed perfectly. Often the native language of the user is the language that is strongest, while the non-native language degrades in clarity. In an educational environment this is particularly difficult for deaf children as a majority of teachers who teach the deaf are hearing. Results from surveys taken indicate that communication for students is indeed signing, and that the signing leans more toward English rather than ASL.
A contact sign language, or contact sign, is a variety or style of language that arises from contact between deaf individuals using a sign language and hearing individuals using an oral language. Contact languages also arise between different sign languages, although the term pidgin rather than contact sign is used to describe such phenomena.
Manually coded languages (MCLs) are a family of gestural communication methods which include gestural spelling as well as constructed languages which directly interpolate the grammar and syntax of oral languages in a gestural-visual form—that is, signed versions of oral languages. Unlike the sign languages that have evolved naturally in deaf communities, these manual codes are the conscious invention of deaf and hearing educators, and as such lack the distinct spatial structures present in native deaf sign languages. MCLs mostly follow the grammar of the oral language—or, more precisely, of the written form of the oral language that they interpolate. They have been mainly used in deaf education in an effort to "represent English on the hands" and by sign language interpreters in K-12 schools, although they have had some influence on deaf sign languages where their implementation was widespread.
Catalan Sign Language is a sign language used by around 18,000 people in different areas of Spain including Catalonia. As of 2012, the Catalan Federation for the Deaf estimates 25,000 LSC signers and roughly 12,000 deaf people around the Catalan lands. It has about 50% intelligibility with Spanish Sign Language (LSE). On the basis of mutual intelligibility, lexicon, and social attitudes, linguists have argued that LSC and LSE are distinct languages.
Hausa Sign Language is the indigenous sign language of the Deaf community in northern Nigeria.
Singapore Sign Language, or SgSL, is the native sign language used by the deaf and hard of hearing in Singapore, developed over six decades since the setting up of the first school for the Deaf in 1954. Since Singapore's independence in 1965, the Singapore deaf community has had to adapt to many linguistic changes. Today, the local deaf community recognises Singapore Sign Language (SgSL) as a reflection of Singapore's diverse culture. SgSL is influenced by Shanghainese Sign Language (SSL), American Sign Language (ASL), Signing Exact English (SEE-II) and locally developed signs.
The Swedish Sign Language family is a language family of sign languages, including Swedish Sign Language, Portuguese Sign Language, Cape Verdian Sign Language, Finnish Sign Language and Eritrean Sign.
There are one or two known sign languages in Myanmar. There are three schools for the deaf in the country: the Mary Chapman School for the Deaf in Yangon, the School for the Deaf, Mandalay, and the Immanuel School for the Deaf in Kalay. At least in Yangon, instruction in oral, in the Burmese language, with sign used to support it. The sign of Yangon and Mandalay is different, but it's not clear if they are one language or two. Influences on the language(s) include ASL in all schools, as well as Korean Sign Language, Australian Sign Language, Thai Sign Language, and possibly a local substratum. A government project was set up in 2010 to establish a national sign language with the aid of the Japanese Federation of the Deaf.
American Sign Language (ASL) developed in the United States, starting as a blend of local sign languages and French Sign Language (FSL). 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.
A nonmanual feature, also sometimes called nonmanual signal or sign language expression, are the features of signed languages that do not use the hands. Nonmanual features are grammaticised and a necessary component in many signs, in the same way that manual features are. Nonmanual features serve a similar function to intonation in spoken languages.
References
- ↑ Woodward, James (1991), "The relationship of sign language varieties in India, Pakistan, and Nepal", Sign Language Studies, 78: 15–22.
- ↑ Parkhurst, Stephen; Parkhurst, Dianne (1998), "Introduction to Sign Language survey", Notes on Sociolinguistics, 3: 215–42.
- ↑ Ciupek-Reed, Julia (2012), Participatory methods in sociolinguistic sign language survey: A case study in El Salvador (PDF) (MA thesis), University of North Dakota, archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-03-26, retrieved 2012-09-10.
- ↑ Aldersson, Russell R; McEntee-Atalianis, Lisa J (2007), A Lexical Comparison of Icelandic Sign Language and Danish Sign Language, Studies in Applied Linguistics, Birkbeck, archived from the original on 2021-05-14, retrieved 2012-09-10.
- ↑ For a classification, Wittmann, Henri (1991), "Classification linguistique des langues signées non vocalement" [Linguistic classification of non vocally signed languages](PDF), Revue québécoise de linguistique théorique et appliquée (in French), 10 (1): 215–88, archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-04-12, retrieved 2012-10-30.
- ↑ Kamei, Nobutaka. The Birth of Langue des Signes Franco-Africaine: Creole ASL in West and Central French-speaking Africa, paper presented at Languages and Education in Africa (LEA), University of Oslo, June 19–22, 2006.
- ↑ Kamei, Nobutaka (2004). The Sign Languages of Africa, "Journal of African Studies" (Japan Association for African Studies) Vol. 64, March, 2004. [NOTE: Kamei lists 23 African sign languages in this article].
- ↑ "History of the deaf and sign languages in Africa" (in Japanese). Aacore. December 25, 2006. Archived from the original on June 4, 2009. Retrieved May 10, 2009.
- ↑ "Africa – Sign Language". LibGuides. Gallaudet University Library. 2012-03-07. Archived from the original on 2017-12-07. Retrieved 2012-05-21.
- ↑ Diane Brentari, Sign Languages, p 406
- ↑ "Structure of ASL and Libras". University of Connecticut. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 1 August 2015.
- ↑ "Lei 10.436 de 24 de abril de 2002". Brazilian Government. Archived from the original on 10 September 2010. Retrieved 2018-02-07.
- ↑ Clark, Brenda Rae (December 2017). A Grammatical Sketch of Sivia Sign Language (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-10-08. Retrieved 2019-09-19.
- ↑ "Hawaii Sign Language discovered by UH Manoa researchers | University of Hawaiʻi System News". 2013-03-01. Archived from the original on 2024-01-07. Retrieved 2024-01-30.
- ↑ "Research team discovers existence of Hawaii Sign Language". Hawaii 24/7. 2013-03-05. Archived from the original on 2024-01-07. Retrieved 2024-01-30.
- ↑ melaniejayneashford (2021-11-29). "Saving Hawai'i Sign Language from Extinction". Hearing Like Me. Archived from the original on 2024-05-26. Retrieved 2024-01-30.
- ↑ Corinne, Chin. "The fight to save Hawaii Sign Language from extinction". CNN. Archived from the original on 2023-12-14. Retrieved 2024-01-30.
- ↑ Pamela Perniss, Roland Pfau, Markus Steinbach; Visible Variation. Walter de Gruyter, 2007. (p.ix)
- ↑ EUD. "European Union of the deaf: Cyprus". Eud.eu. Archived from the original on 2014-11-22. Retrieved 2012-05-21.
- ↑ "Mardin Sign Language". University of Central Lancashire. 2010-09-16. Archived from the original on 2012-09-10. Retrieved 2012-05-21.
