List of sign languages

There are perhaps three hundred sign languages in use around the world today. The number is not known with any confidence; new sign languages emerge frequently through creolization and de novo (and occasionally through language planning). In some countries, such as Sri Lanka and Tanzania, each school for the deaf may have a separate language, known only to its students and sometimes denied by the school; on the other hand, countries may share sign languages, although sometimes under different names (Croatian and Serbian, Indian and Pakistani). Deaf sign languages also arise outside educational institutions, especially in village communities with high levels of congenital deafness, but there are significant sign languages developed for the hearing as well, such as the speech-taboo languages used in aboriginal Australia. Scholars are doing field surveys to identify the world's sign languages.^[1][2][3][4]

The following list is grouped into three sections :

• Deaf sign languages, which are the preferred languages of Deaf communities around the world; these include village sign languages, shared with the hearing community, and Deaf-community sign languages
• Auxiliary sign languages, which are not native languages but sign systems of varying complexity, used alongside spoken languages. Simple gestures are not included, as they do not constitute language.
• Signed modes of spoken languages, also known as manually coded languages, which are bridges between signed and spoken languages

The list of deaf sign languages is sorted regionally and alphabetically, and such groupings should not be taken to imply any genetic relationships between these languages (see List of language families).^[5]

Sign language list

Contemporary deaf sign languages

Africa

There are at least 25 sign languages in Africa, according to researcher Nobutaka Kamei.^[6][7][8] Some have distributions that are completely independent of those of African spoken languages. At least 13 foreign sign languages, mainly from Europe and America, have been introduced to at least 27 African nations; some of the 23 sign languages documented by Kamei have originated with or been influenced by them.

Americas

Asia-Pacific

Europe

Middle East

Historical deaf sign languages

• Martha's Vineyard Sign Language
• Old French Sign Language – ancestral to the French family
• Old Kent Sign Language

Auxiliary sign languages

• Baby Sign – using signs to assist early language development in young children.
• Contact Sign – a pidgin or contact language between a spoken language and a sign language, e.g. Pidgin Sign English (PSE).
• Curwin Hand Signs – a technique which allows musical notes to be communicated through hand signs.
• International Sign (previously known as Gestuno) – an auxiliary language used by deaf people in international settings.
• Makaton – a system of signed communication used by and with people who have speech, language or learning difficulties.
• Mofu-Gudur Sign Language
• Monastic sign language
• Signalong – international sign assisted communication techniques used to support children and adults with communication or learning difficulties

Manual modes of spoken languages

Manual modes of spoken languages include:

• General
  • Cued Speech – a hand/mouth system (HMS) to render spoken language phonemes visually intelligible.
  • Fingerspelling – alphabetic signs to represent the written form of a spoken language.
• English
  • Manually Coded English
  • Signing Exact English (SEE2)
  • Makaton
• Malay
  • Bahasa Malaysia Kod Tangan (BMKT)
• Speech-taboo languages
  • Caucasian Sign Language
  • Australian Aboriginal sign languages (though Yolŋu Sign Language does not correspond to any one language, and doubles as a language of the deaf)

Genetic classification of sign languages

Languages are assigned families (implying a genetic relationships between these languages) as British, Swedish (perhaps a branch of BSL), French (with branches ASL (American), Austro-Hungarian, Danish, Italian), German, Japanese, and language isolates.

See also

• Contact sign
• Intercultural competence
• Legal recognition of sign languages
• List of sign languages by number of native signers
• Manual alphabet
• Sign language
• World Federation of the Deaf

References

1. Woodward, James (1991), "The relationship of sign language varieties in India, Pakistan, and Nepal", Sign Language Studies, 78: 15–22.
2. Parkhurst, Stephen; Parkhurst, Dianne (1998), "Introduction to Sign Language survey", Notes on Sociolinguistics, 3: 215–42.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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].
8. "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.
9. "Africa – Sign Language". LibGuides. Gallaudet University Library. 2012-03-07. Archived from the original on 2017-12-07. Retrieved 2012-05-21.
10. Diane Brentari, Sign Languages, p 406
11. "Structure of ASL and Libras". University of Connecticut. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 1 August 2015.
12. "Lei 10.436 de 24 de abril de 2002". Brazilian Government. Archived from the original on 10 September 2010. Retrieved 2018-02-07.
13. 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.
14. "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.
15. "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.
16. 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.
17. Corinne, Chin. "The fight to save Hawaii Sign Language from extinction". CNN. Archived from the original on 2023-12-14. Retrieved 2024-01-30.
18. Pamela Perniss, Roland Pfau, Markus Steinbach; Visible Variation. Walter de Gruyter, 2007. (p.ix)
19. EUD. "European Union of the deaf: Cyprus". Eud.eu. Archived from the original on 2014-11-22. Retrieved 2012-05-21.
20. "Mardin Sign Language". University of Central Lancashire. 2010-09-16. Archived from the original on 2012-09-10. Retrieved 2012-05-21.

External links

• Ethnologue – Deaf sign languages
• Multiple accessible sign languages dictionaries
• Signes du Monde, directory for all online Sign Languages dictionaries (in French and English)