Sign Language - History, Linguistics, Languages & Learning
There are about 140 sign languages world-wide recorded. Sign Languages, once disregarded by hearing society as mere physical gestures that represent oral language, are now recognised as languages in their own right, comprised of specific grammers, modalities and vocabularies.
Some well-known native sign languages are:
- Australian Sign Language? (Auslan), Australia
- American Sign Language? (ASL), United States
- British Sign Language (BSL), United Kingdom
- Lingustics Sign Quebec (LSQ), French Canada
- Japanese Sign Language? (JSL), Japan
- New Zealand Sign Language? (NZSL), New Zealand
- French Sign Language, France
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[Edit]1 History of sign languages
Manual communication in the form of "Home Signs" has probably existed for as long as humans have lived. People have always had a need to communicate with each other, even when they do not speak the same language, or one of the people cannot hear. Australia Aborigines have ancient sign vocabularies that are used both in hunting situations, when spoken word might frighten away the prey, and just generally in conversation. So too do the American Indians.
The origin of modern sign language is often thought to have begun in Spain, where a man named John Pablo Bonet wrote a book entitled 'Reduction of Letters And Art For Teaching Mute People To Speak' in 1620. It is the first historical work that sets out to establish a means of education the deaf and the mute by the use of hand signals. The manual alphabet of modern Sign Language was formed by Charles-Michel de l'Épée in the early 1700's, and his family had a hand in the establishment of the world's first school for deaf children in Paris in the year 1755. Laurent Clerc, the man who founded the American School of the Deaf, and who with Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet founded the United States' first college for the deaf, Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., was a graduate of this Paris school.
[Edit]2 Handshapes
[Edit]3 Various Alphabets
[Edit]4 Other Resources
- Ethnologue - Deaf Sign Language Family Trees
(http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=90008)
