Everything about Sign Language totally explained
Sign language (also
signed language) is a
language which uses
manual communication,
body language and lip patterns instead of
sound to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the
hands,
arms or
body, and
facial expressions to express fluidly a speaker's
thoughts. Sign languages commonly develop in
deaf communities, which can include interpreters and friends and families of deaf people as well as people who are
deaf or
hard of hearing themselves.
Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages develop. In fact, their complex spatial grammars are markedly different from the grammars of spoken languages. Hundreds of sign languages are in use around the world and are at the cores of local
Deaf cultures. Some sign languages have obtained some form of
legal recognition, while others have no status at all.
In addition to sign languages, various signed codes of spoken languages have been developed, such as
Signed English and
Warlpiri Sign Language. These are not to be confused with languages, oral or signed; a signed code of an oral language is simply a signed mode of the language it carries, just as a writing system is a written mode. Signed codes of oral languages can be useful for learning oral languages or for expressing and discussing literal quotations from those languages, but they're generally too awkward and unwieldy for normal discourse. For example, a teacher and deaf student of English in the United States might use Signed English to cite examples of English usage, but the discussion of those examples would be in
American Sign Language.
Exemplary of the mature status of sign languages is the growing body of sign language poetry, and other stage performances. The
poetic mechanisms
available to signing poets are not all available to a speaking poet. This offers new, exciting ways for poems to reach and move the audience.
History of sign language
The written history of sign language began in the 17th century in Spain. In 1620,
Juan Pablo Bonet published (‘Reduction of letters and art for teaching mute people to speak’) in Madrid. It is considered the first modern treaty of Phonetics and Logopedia, setting out a method of oral education for the deaf people by means of the use of manual signs, in form of a manual alphabet to improve the communication of the dumb or deaf people.
From the language of signs of Bonet,
Charles-Michel de l'Épée published his alphabet in the 18th century, which has arrived basically unchanged until the present time.
In 1755, Abbé de l'Épée founded the first public school for deaf children in Paris;
Laurent Clerc was arguably its most famous graduate. He went to the United States with
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet to found the
American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. Gallaudet's son,
Edward Miner Gallaudet founded the first college for the deaf in 1857, which in 1864 became
Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, the only liberal arts university for the deaf in the world.
Generally, each spoken language has a sign language counterpart in as much as each linguistic population will contain Deaf members who will generate a sign language. In much the same way that geographical or cultural forces will isolate populations and lead to the generation of different and distinct spoken languages, the same forces operate on signed languages and so they tend to maintain their identities through time in roughly the same areas of influence as the local spoken languages. This occurs even though sign languages have no relation to the spoken languages of the lands in which they arise. There are notable exceptions to this pattern, however, as some geographic regions sharing a spoken language have multiple, unrelated signed languages. Variations within a 'national' sign language can usually be correlated to the geographic location of residential schools for the deaf.
International Sign, formerly known as Gestuno, is used mainly at international Deaf events such as the
Deaflympics and meetings of the
World Federation of the Deaf. Recent studies claim that while International Sign is a kind of a
pidgin, they conclude that it's more complex than a typical pidgin and indeed is more like a full signed language.
Engravings of (Bonet, 1620):
Image:Lengua de Signos (Juan Pablo Bonet, 1620) A.jpg|A.
Image:Lengua de Signos (Bonet, 1620) B, C, D.jpg|B, C, D.
Image:Lengua de Signos (Bonet, 1620) E, F, G.jpg|E, F, G.
Image:Lengua de Signos (Bonet, 1620) H, I, J.jpg|H, I, L.
Image:Lengua de Signos (Bonet, 1620) M, N.jpg|M, N.
Image:Lengua de Signos (Bonet, 1620) O, P, Q.jpg|O, P, Q.
Image:Lengua de Signos (Bonet, 1620) R, S, T.jpg|R, S, T.
Image:Lengua de Signos (Bonet, 1620) V, X, Y, Z.jpg|V, X, Y, Z.
Linguistics of sign
In linguistic terms, sign languages are as rich and complex as any oral language, despite the common misconception that they're not "real languages". Professional
linguists have studied many sign languages and found them to have every linguistic component required to be classed as true languages.
Sign languages are not
pantomime - in other words, signs are conventional, often arbitrary and don't necessarily have a visual relationship to their referent, much as most spoken language isn't
onomatopoeic. While
iconicity is more systematic and wide-spread in sign languages than in spoken ones, the difference isn't categorical. Nor are they a visual rendition of an oral language. They have complex
grammars of their own, and can be used to discuss any topic, from the simple and concrete to the lofty and abstract.
Sign languages, like oral languages, organize elementary, meaningless units (
phonemes; once called
cheremes in the case of sign languages) into meaningful
semantic units. The elements of a sign are
Handshape (or Handform),
Orientation (or Palm Orientation),
Location (or Place of Articulation),
Movement, and Non-manual markers (or Facial
Expression), summarised in the
acronym HOLME.
Common linguistic features of deaf sign languages are extensive use of
classifiers, a high degree of
inflection, and a
topic-comment syntax. Many unique linguistic features emerge from sign languages' ability to produce meaning in different parts of the visual field simultaneously. For example, the recipient of a signed message can read meanings carried by the hands, the facial expression and the body posture in the same moment. This is in contrast to oral languages, where the sounds that comprise words are mostly sequential (tone being an exception).
Sign languages' relationships with oral languages
A common misconception is that sign languages are somehow dependent on oral languages, that is, that they're oral language spelled out in gesture, or that they were invented by hearing people. Hearing teachers in deaf schools, such as
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, are often incorrectly referred to as “inventors” of sign language.
Manual alphabets (fingerspelling) are used in sign languages, mostly for proper names and technical or specialised vocabulary borrowed from spoken languages. The use of fingerspelling was once taken as evidence that sign languages were simplified versions of oral languages, but in fact it's merely one tool among many. Fingerspelling can sometimes be a source of new signs, which are called lexicalized signs.
On the whole, deaf sign languages are independent of oral languages and follow their own paths of development. For example,
British Sign Language and
American Sign Language are quite different and mutually unintelligible, even though the hearing people of Britain and America share the same oral language.
Similarly, countries which use a single oral language throughout may have two or more sign languages; whereas an area that contains more than one oral language might use only one sign language.
South Africa, which has 11 official oral languages and a similar number of other widely used oral languages is a good example of this. It has only one sign language with two variants due to its history of having two major educational institutions for the deaf which have served different geographic areas of the country.
Spatial grammar and simultaneity
Sign languages exploit the unique features of the visual medium.
Oral language is linear. Only one sound can be made or received at a time. Sign language, on the other hand, is visual; hence a whole scene can be taken in at once. Information can be loaded into several channels and expressed simultaneously. As an illustration, in English one could utter the phrase, "I drove here". To add information about the drive, one would have to make a longer phrase or even add a second, such as, "I drove here along a winding road," or "I drove here. It was a nice drive." However, in American Sign Language, information about the shape of the road or the pleasing nature of the drive can be conveyed simultaneously with the verb 'drive' by inflecting the motion of the hand, or by taking advantage of non-manual signals such as body posture and facial expression, at the same time that the verb 'drive' is being signed. Therefore, whereas in English the phrase "I drove here and it was very pleasant" is longer than "I drove here," in American Sign Language the two may be the same length.
In fact, in terms of syntax, ASL shares more with spoken
Japanese than it does with English.(Karen Nakamura,1995)
Use of signs in hearing communities
Gesture is a typical component of spoken languages. More elaborate systems of
manual communication have developed in places or situations where speech isn't practical or permitted, such as
cloistered religious communities,
scuba diving,
television recording studios, loud workplaces,
stock exchanges,
baseball, hunting (by groups such as the Kalahari
bushmen), or in the game
Charades. In
Rugby Union the Referee uses a limited but defined set of signs to communicate his/her decisions to the spectators. Recently, there has been a movement to teach and encourage the use of sign language with toddlers before they learn to talk, because such young children can communicate effectively with signed languages well before they're physically capable of speech. This is typically referred to as
Baby Sign. There is also movement to use signed languages more with non-deaf and non-hard-of-hearing children with other causes of speech impairment or delay, for the obvious benefit of effective communication without needless dependence on speech.
On occasion, where the prevalence of deaf people is high enough, a deaf sign language has been taken up by an entire local community. Famous examples of this include
Martha's Vineyard Sign Language in the
USA,
Kata Kolok in a village in
Bali,
Adamorobe Sign Language in
Ghana and
Yucatec Maya sign language in
Mexico. In such communities deaf people are not socially disadvantaged.
Many
Australian Aboriginal sign languages arose in a context of extensive speech taboos, such as during mourning and initiation rites. They are or were especially highly developed among the
Warlpiri,
Warumungu,
Dieri,
Kaytetye,
Arrernte,
Warlmanpa, and are based on their respective spoken languages.
A
pidgin sign language arose among tribes of
American Indians in the
Great Plains region of
North America (see
Plains Indian Sign Language). It was used to communicate among tribes with different spoken
languages. There are especially users today among the
Crow,
Cheyenne, and
Arapaho. Unlike other sign languages developed by hearing people, it shares the spatial grammar of deaf sign languages.
Home sign
Sign systems are sometimes developed within a single family. For instance, when hearing parents with no sign language skills have a deaf child, an informal system of signs will naturally develop, unless repressed by the parents. The term for these mini-languages is
home sign (sometimes homesign or kitchen sign).
Home sign arises due to the absence of any other way to communicate. Within the span of a single lifetime and without the support or feedback of a community, the child is forced to invent signals to facilitate the meeting of his or her communication needs. Although this kind of system is grossly inadequate for the intellectual development of a child and it comes nowhere near meeting the standards linguists use to describe a complete language, it's a common occurrence. No type of Home Sign is recognized as an official language.
Classification of sign languages
Although deaf sign languages have emerged naturally in deaf communities alongside or among spoken languages, they're unrelated to spoken languages and have different grammatical structures at their core. A group of sign "languages" known as
manually coded languages are more properly understood as signed
modes of spoken languages, and therefore belong to the language families of their respective spoken languages. There are, for example, several such
signed encodings of English.
There has been very little historical linguistic research on sign languages, and few attempts to determine genetic relationships between sign languages, other than simple comparison of
lexical data and some discussion about whether certain sign languages are dialects of a language or languages of a family. Languages may be spread through migration, through the establishment of deaf schools (often by foreign-trained educators), or due to political domination.
Language contact is common, making clear family classifications difficult — it's often unclear whether lexical similarity is due to borrowing or a common parent language. Contact occurs between sign languages, between signed and spoken languages (
Contact Sign), and between sign languages and
gestural systems used by the broader community. One author has speculated that
Adamorobe Sign Language may be related to the "gestural trade jargon used in the markets throughout West Africa", in vocabulary and
areal features including prosody and phonetics.
- BSL, Auslan and NZSL are usually considered to belong to a language family known as BANZSL.
- Japanese Sign Language, Taiwanese Sign Language and Korean Sign Language are thought to be members of a Japanese Sign Language family.
- There are a number of sign languages that emerged from French Sign Language (LSF), or were the result of language contact between local community sign languages and LSF. These include: French Sign Language, Quebec Sign Language, American Sign Language, Irish Sign Language, Russian Sign Language, Dutch Sign Language, Flemish Sign Language, Belgian-French Sign Language, Spanish Sign Language, Mexican Sign Language, Brazilian Sign Language and others.
- Anecdotal evidence suggests that Finnish Sign Language, Swedish Sign Language and Norwegian Sign Language belong to a Scandinavian Sign Language family.
- Icelandic Sign Language is known to have originated from Danish Sign Language, although significant differences in vocabulary have developed in the course of a century of separate development.
- According to a SIL report, the sign languages of Russia, Moldova and Ukraine share a high degree of lexical similarity and may be dialects of one language, or distinct related languages. The same report suggested a "cluster" of sign languages centered around Czech Sign Language, Hungarian Sign Language and Slovakian Sign Language. This group may also include Romanian, Bulgarian, and Polish sign languages.
- Known isolates include Nicaraguan Sign Language, Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, and Providence Island Sign Language.
- Sign languages of Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq (and possibly Saudi Arabia) may be part of a sprachbund, or may be one dialect of a larger Eastern Arabic Sign Language.
Written forms of sign languages
Sign language differs from oral language in its relation to writing. The
phonemic systems of oral languages are primarily
sequential: that is, the majority of phonemes are produced in a sequence one after another, although many languages also have non-sequential aspects such as tone. As a consequence, traditional phonemic writing systems are also sequential, with at best
diacritics for non-sequential aspects such as stress and tone.
Sign languages have a higher non-sequential component, with many "phonemes" produced simultaneously. For example, signs may involve fingers, hands, and face moving simultaneously, or the two hands moving in different directions. Traditional writing systems are not designed to deal with this level of complexity.
Partially because of this, sign languages are not often written. Most deaf signers read and write the oral language of their country. However, there have been several attempts at developing scripts for sign language. These have included both "phonetic" systems, such as
HamNoSys (the Hamburg Notational System) and
SignWriting, which can be used for any sign language, and "phonemic" systems such as the one used by
William Stokoe in his
1965 Dictionary of American Sign Language, which are designed for a specific language.
These systems are based on
iconic symbols. Some, such as SignWriting and HamNoSys, are
pictographic, being conventionalized pictures of the hands, face, and body; others, such as the
Stokoe notation, are more iconic. Stokoe used letters of the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals to indicate the handshapes used in fingerspelling, such as 'A' for a closed fist, 'B' for a flat hand, and '5' for a spread hand; but non-alphabetic symbols for location and movement, such as '[]' for the trunk of the body, '×' for contact, and '^' for an upward movement. David J. Peterson has attempted to create a phonetic transcription system for signing that's ASCII-friendly known as the
Sign Language International Phonetic Alphabet (SLIPA).
SignWriting, being pictographic, is able to represent simultaneous elements in a single sign. The Stokoe notation, on the other hand, is sequential, with a conventionalized order of a symbol for the location of the sign, then one for the hand shape, and finally one (or more) for the movement. The orientation of the hand is indicated with an optional diacritic before the hand shape. When two movements occur simultaneously, they're written one atop the other; when sequential, they're written one after the other. Neither the Stokoe nor HamNoSys scripts are designed to represent facial expressions or non-manual movements, both of which SignWriting accommodates easily, although this is being gradually corrected in HamNoSys.
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