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British Sign Language (BSL) is a sign language used in the United Kingdom (UK), and is the first or preferred language among the Deaf community in the UK. 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 which 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.
Auslan is the majority sign language of the Australian Deaf community. The term Auslan is a portmanteau of "Australian Sign Language", coined by Trevor Johnston in the 1980s, although the language itself is much older. Auslan is related to British Sign Language (BSL) and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL); the three have descended from the same parent language, and together comprise the BANZSL language family. Auslan has also been influenced by Irish Sign Language (ISL) and more recently has borrowed signs from American Sign Language (ASL).
British, Australian and New Zealand Sign Language (BANZSL), is the language of which British Sign Language (BSL), Auslan and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) may be considered dialects. These three languages may be considered dialects of a single language (BANZSL) due to their use of the same grammar, manual alphabet, and the high degree of lexical overlap. The term BANZSL was coined by Trevor Johnston and Adam Schembri.
Irish Sign Language is the sign language of Ireland, used primarily in the Republic of Ireland. It is also used in Northern Ireland, alongside British Sign Language (BSL). Irish Sign Language is more closely related to French Sign Language (LSF) than to BSL, though it has influence from both languages. It has influenced sign languages in Australia and South Africa, and has little relation to either spoken Irish or English. ISL is unique among sign languages for having different gendered versions due to men and women being taught it at different schools.
Hawaiʻi Sign Language, also known as Hoailona ʻŌlelo and Old Hawaiʻi 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.
Many Australian Aboriginal cultures have or traditionally had a manually coded language, a signed counterpart of their oral language. This appears to be connected with various speech taboos between certain kin or at particular times, such as during a mourning period for women or during initiation ceremonies for men, as was also the case with Caucasian Sign Language but not Plains Indian Sign Language, which did not involve speech taboo, or deaf sign languages, which are not encodings of oral language. There is some similarity between neighboring groups and some contact pidgin similar to Plains Indian Sign Language in the American Great Plains.
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.
Ka'apor Sign Language was a village sign language used by the small community of Ka'apor people in the Brazilian state of Maranhão. Linguist Jim Kakumasu observed in 1968 that the number of deaf people in the community was 7 out of a population of about 500. This relatively high ratio of deafness led to both hearing and deaf members of the community using the language, and most hearing children grow up bilingual in the spoken and signed languages. The current state of the language is unknown. Other Indigenous tribes in the region have also been reported to use sign languages, and to communicate between themselves using sign language pidgins.
Flemish Sign Language is a deaf sign language of Belgium. It is closely related to French Belgian Sign Language, but they are now generally recognized as distinct languages. VGT is estimated to include around 6,000 sign-language users.
Rennellese Sign Language is an extinct form of home sign documented from Rennell Island in 1974. It was developed about 1915 by a deaf person named Kagobai and used by his hearing family and friends, but apparently died with him; he was the only deaf person on the island, and there never was an established, self-replicating community of signers. Accordingly, in January 2017 its ISO 639-3 code [rsi] was retired. Kuschel, the only source of information about this communication system, cites no evidence to suggest that there was any contact with any sign language.
Peruvian Sign Language is a Peruvian language created and used by the Deaf community in Peru. It has been officially recognized by Peruvian law since 2010. It is not clear how many users there are in the country; the most recent general census registered little more than 10,000, but the more specific census on people with special needs found around half a million people with hearing disabilities.
The French Belgian Sign Language is the deaf sign language of the French language Community of Belgium, a country in Western Europe. It and Flemish Sign Language are very closely related (and distantly if at all related to French Sign Language, but generally regarded today as distinct languages.
Trinidad and Tobago Sign Language (TTSL), sometimes called Trinidadian or Trinbago Sign Language (TSL) is the indigenous deaf sign language of Trinidad and Tobago, originating in about 1943 when the first deaf school opened, the Cascade School for the Deaf. It is not used in deaf education, which has been the domain of American Sign Language since about 1974, when a philosophy of Total Communication replaced previous Oralist approaches. A mixture of TTSL and ASL is used in Deaf associations, with TTSL being used more heavily in informal situations. The younger generation does not know the language well, as they only learn ASL in school, but teachers are starting to switch over to TTSL.
Afghan Sign Language is the deaf sign language of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, possibly with some presence in Kabul. It has been encouraged in the country's only school for the deaf, and derives from the Deaf-community sign language of Jalalabad, but it's not known what connection it may have, if any, with the sign languages of other cities with established deaf populations, which are principally Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif, Herat, and Kandahar. American Sign Language was used in the Jalalabad school for a few years, and so may have had some influence on Afghan Sign.
Trevor Johnston is an Australian expert on Auslan.
The deaf community in Australia is a diverse cultural and linguistic minority group. Deaf communities have many distinctive cultural characteristics, some of which are shared across many different countries. These characteristics include language, values and behaviours. The Australian deaf community relies primarily on Australian Sign Language, or Auslan. Those in the Australian deaf community experience some parts of life differently than those in the broader hearing world, such as access to education and health care.
Papua New Guinean Sign Language (PNGSL) is a sign language originating from Papua New Guinea. The standardised form of PNGSL was made an official language of Papua New Guinea in 2015.
Miriwoong Sign Language is a developed Australian Aboriginal sign language used by the Miriwoong, an Aboriginal community in the north of Australia. It is mostly used by the hearing community, but three deaf speakers have been identified. Speakers do not find Yolngu Sign Language to be understandable.
Sivia Sign Language is the deaf sign language of the Quechua town of Sivia in Peru. It is not related to Peruvian Sign Language.
Australian Irish Sign Language or AISL is a minority sign language in Australia. As a Francosign language, it is related to French Sign Language as opposed to Auslan which is a Banzsl language which is related to British Sign Language. AISL was brought to Australia from Ireland in 1875 by a group of Dominican nuns where three schools were established and used AISL as a language of instruction. Due to oralist policies, the use of AISL was discontinued as a language of instruction in the early 1950s. There are now around 100 signers of this language, most of whom are in their early seventies and onwards, though there may be younger CODAs.
