Two sign language interpreters working as a team for a school. Language interpreting or interpretation is the intellectual activity of facilitating oral and sign-language communication either simultaneously or consecutively between two

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. A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them Manual communication systems use articulation of the hands ( Hand signs, Gestures to mediate a message between persons Body language is a term for Communication using Body movements or Gestures instead of or in addition to sounds verbal language or other communication Sound' is Vibration transmitted through a Solid, Liquid, or Gas; particularly sound means those vibrations composed of Frequencies The hands ( med / lat: manus pl manūs are the two intricate prehensile multi- Fingered body parts normally located at the end of each arm of a In Anatomy, an arm is one of the Upper limbs of an animal The term arm can also be used for analogous structures such as one of the paired upper limbs With regard to living things, a body is the integral physical material of an individual A facial expression results from one or more motions or positions of the Muscles of the Face. Thought and thinking are mental forms and Processes respectively ("thought" is both 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. Deaf Culture is social group of people who consider Deafness to be a difference in human experience rather than a Disability.

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. Deaf Culture is social group of people who consider Deafness to be a difference in human experience rather than a Disability. Some sign languages have obtained some form of legal recognition, while others have no status at all. The legal recognition of sign languages is one of the major concerns of the international Deaf community

In addition to sign languages, various signed codes of spoken languages have been developed, such as Signed English and Warlpiri Sign Language. Manually Coded English (MCE is a general term used to describe a variety of visual communication methods expressed through the hands which attempt to represent the English language Warlpiri Sign Language is a Sign language used by the Warlpiri, an Aboriginal community in the central desert region of Australia. 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 are 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. American Sign Language (or ASL Ameslan is the dominant Sign language of the Deaf community in the United States, in the English-speaking parts

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.

Sign language used in Edo Maajka's video "To Što Se Traži" to interpret fast paced rap without losing fluidity. Edo Maajka (born as Edin Osmić on December 22 1978 in Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, then Yugoslavia) is a Famous Bosniak

History of sign language

Main article: History of sign language

Juan Pablo Bonet, Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos (Madrid, 1620). The recorded history of sign language in Western society extends from the 16th century as a Visual language or method of communication

The written history of sign language began in the 17th century in Spain. In 1620, Juan Pablo Bonet published Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos (‘Reduction of letters and art for teaching mute people to speak’) in Madrid. Juan Pablo Bonet ( Zaragoza ( Aragon) circa 1573-1633 was a Spanish priest and pioneer of education for the deaf 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. Abbé Charles-Michel de l'Épée, (born November 25, 1712, Versailles; died December 23, 1789, Paris) was a

In 1755, Abbé de l'Épée founded the first public school for deaf children in Paris; Laurent Clerc was arguably its most famous graduate. Laurent Clerc (born Louis Laurent Marie Clerc ( 26 December 1785 &ndash 18 July 1869) was called "The Apostle of the deaf in He went to the United States with Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet to found the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. Reverend Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet LLD, ( December 10 1787 &ndash September 10 1851) was a renowned American pioneer in the The American School for the Deaf (ASD was the first institution for the education of the Deaf in America. ^[1] 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. Edward Miner Gallaudet ( February 5 1837 &ndash September 26 1917) son of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Sophia Fowler Gallaudet Gallaudet University is a federally chartered quasi-governmental University for the education of the Deaf and Hard-of-hearing, located in Washington

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. International Sign (IS (also Gestuno, International Sign Language (ISL International Sign Pidgin and International Gesture (IG is an The Deaflympics (previously called World Games for the Deaf, and International Games for the Deaf) are an IOC -sanctioned event at which Deaf The World Federation of the Deaf (WFD is an international Non-governmental organization that acts as a Peak body for national associations of Deaf people Recent studies claim that while International Sign is a kind of a pidgin, they conclude that it is more complex than a typical pidgin and indeed is more like a full signed language. A pidgin is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common in situations such as Trade

Engravings of Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos (Bonet, 1620):

A.	B, C, D.	E, F, G.	H, I, L.
M, N.	O, P, Q.	R, S, T.	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 are 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. Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields

Sign languages are not pantomime - in other words, signs are conventional, often arbitrary and do not necessarily have a visual relationship to their referent, much as most spoken language is not onomatopoeic. Pantomime (informally panto) (not to be confused with a Mime artist, referring to a theatrical performer of mime is a performance genre traditionally found Onomatopoeia (also spelled onomatopœia, from Greek: ονοματοποιΐα is a Word or a grouping of words that imitates the sound it is describing While iconicity is more systematic and wide-spread in sign languages than in spoken ones, the difference is not categorical. In functional- Cognitive linguistics, as well as in Semiotics, iconicity is the conceived Similarity or Analogy between a form of a Sign ^[2] 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. Grammar is the field of Linguistics that covers the Rules governing the use of any given natural language.

Sign languages, like oral languages, organize elementary, meaningless units (phonemes; once called cheremes in the case of sign languages) into meaningful semantic units. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU The chereme (from χείρ "hand" is a term for the basic unit of signed communication Semantics is the study of meaning in communication The word derives from Greek σημαντικός ( semantikos) "significant" from 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. Acronyms, initialisms, and alphabetisms are Abbreviations that are formed using the initial components in a phrase or name

Common linguistic features of deaf sign languages are extensive use of classifiers, a high degree of inflection, and a topic-comment syntax. A classifier, in Linguistics, is a Word or Morpheme used in some languages to classify a Noun according to its meaning In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice A topic-prominent language is a language that organizes its Syntax so that sentences have a topic–comment (or theme–rheme structure in which the In Linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek grc συν- syn-, "together" and grc τάξις táxis, "arrangement" is the 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 are 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. Reverend Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet LLD, ( December 10 1787 &ndash September 10 1851) was a renowned American pioneer in the

Manual alphabets (fingerspelling) are used in sign languages, mostly for proper names and technical or specialised vocabulary borrowed from spoken languages. Fingerspelling (or dactylology) is the representation of the letters of a Writing system, and sometimes Numeral systems using only the hands The use of fingerspelling was once taken as evidence that sign languages were simplified versions of oral languages, but in fact it is 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. British Sign Language ( BSL) is the Sign language used in the United Kingdom (UK and is the first or preferred language of Deaf people in the American Sign Language (or ASL Ameslan is the dominant Sign language of the Deaf community in the United States, in the English-speaking parts

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. The Republic of South Africa (also known by other official names) is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa 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. The Japanese language has a highly regular Agglutinative verb morphology with both productive and fixed elements (Karen Nakamura,1995)

Use of signs in hearing communities

Gesture is a typical component of spoken languages. A gesture is a form of Non-verbal communication made with a part of the body used instead of or in combination with verbal communication. More elaborate systems of manual communication have developed in places or situations where speech is not 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. Manual communication systems use articulation of the hands ( Hand signs, Gestures to mediate a message between persons This article concerns the buildings occupied by monastics. For the life inside monasteries and its historical roots see Monasticism. Scuba diving is swimming underwater, or taking part in another activity while using a Scuba set. A television studio is an installation in which Television or Video productions take place either for Live television, for recording Live to tape A stock exchange, share market or bourse is a Corporation or Mutual organization which provides "trading" facilities for Stock Baseball is a Bat-and-ball Sport played between two teams of nine players each The Bushmen, San, Sho, Basarwa, ǃKung or Khwe are indigenous people of southern Africa that spans most areas of South Africa Charades or charade (ʃəˈradz shə-rahdz or /ʃəˈre(ɪdz/ shə-raidz) is a word Guessing game. In Rugby Union the Referee uses a limited but defined set of signs to communicate his/her decisions to the spectators. Overview See also Playing rugby union A rugby union match lasts for 80 minutes (plus stoppage time with a short 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 are physically capable of speech. This is typically referred to as Baby Sign. This article is about the usage of Sign language to communicate with Infants and Toddlers. 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.

Jehovah's Witnesses Convention in Chilean Sign Language. Jehovah's Witnesses is a restorationist, millenialist Christian denomination Chilean Sign Language is a language used by Chile's 845849 deaf people and 7 deaf institutions

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. Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL is a Sign language (now extinct) once widely used on the island of Martha's Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Kata Kolok (literally "deaf talk" is the name given to a Sign language of a village in northern Bali, Indonesia which has had an extraordinarily high Bali is an Indonesian Island located at, the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to Adamorobe Sign Language (AdaSL is an indigenous Sign language used in Adamorobe an Akan village in eastern Ghana. The Republic of Ghana is a country in West Africa. It borders Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast to the west Burkina Faso to the north Togo to the Maya sign languages are used in Mexico and Guatemala by Maya communities with unusually high numbers of Deaf inhabitants The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. 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. Many Australian Aboriginal cultures have or traditionally had a Sign language counterpart to their spoken language They are or were especially highly developed among the Warlpiri, Warumungu, Dieri, Kaytetye, Arrernte, Warlmanpa, and are based on their respective spoken languages. Warlpiri Sign Language is a Sign language used by the Warlpiri, an Aboriginal community in the central desert region of Australia. The Dieri is an Indigenous Australian group and language from the South Australian desert -- specifically Cooper and Leigh Creek Lake Howitt and Lake Hope Lake Gregory Kaytete is the name of the Indigenous Australians who live around Barrow Creek and Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. The Arrernte (also Aranda and Arrarnta) (pronounced UH-rrahn-da are those Indigenous Australians who are the original custodians of Arrernte lands

A pidgin sign language arose among tribes of American Indians in the Great Plains region of North America (see Plains Indian Sign Language). A pidgin is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common in situations such as Trade Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States The Great Plains are the broad expanse of Prairie and Steppe which lie east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL is a Sign language formerly used as an auxiliary Interlanguage between Native Americans of the Great Plains It was used to communicate among tribes with different spoken languages. A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them There are especially users today among the Crow, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. The Crow, also called the Absaroka or Apsáalooke, are a tribe of Native Americans who historically lived in the Yellowstone Cheyenne are a Native American nation of the Great Plains. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taa'e (more commonly The Arapaho (in French: Gens de Vache) tribe of Native Americans historically living on the eastern plains of Colorado and Wyoming Unlike other sign languages developed by hearing people, it shares the spatial grammar of deaf sign languages.

Home sign

Main article: Home sign

Sign systems are sometimes developed within a single family. Home sign (or kitchen sign) is the gestural Communication system developed by a Deaf child who lacks input from a language model in the 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 (or kitchen sign) is the gestural Communication system developed by a Deaf child who lacks input from a language model in the family

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 is a common occurrence. No type of Home Sign is recognized as an official language.

Classification of sign languages

See also: List of sign languages

Although deaf sign languages have emerged naturally in deaf communities alongside or among spoken languages, they are unrelated to spoken languages and have different grammatical structures at their core. Sign language is not universal Like spoken languages sign languages emerge naturally in communities and change through time 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. Manually coded languages (MCLs are representations of spoken languages in a gestural-visual form that is "sign language" versions of spoken languages There are, for example, several such signed encodings of English. Manually Coded English (MCE is a general term used to describe a variety of visual communication methods expressed through the hands which attempt to represent the English language

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. In Linguistics, the lexicon (from Greek Λεξικόν of a language is its Vocabulary, including its words and expressions 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 is often unclear whether lexical similarity is due to borrowing or a common parent language. Language contact occurs when speakers of distinct speech varieties interact Contact occurs between sign languages, between signed and spoken languages (Contact Sign), and between sign languages and gestural systems used by the broader community. Contact Sign is a variety or style of language that arises from contact between a Deaf Sign language and a spoken language (or the written or manually A gesture is a form of Non-verbal communication made with a part of the body used instead of or in combination with verbal communication. 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. Adamorobe Sign Language (AdaSL is an indigenous Sign language used in Adamorobe an Akan village in eastern Ghana. In Linguistics, an areal feature is any typological feature shared by languages within the same geographical area You may want to go to websites on the Internet such as www. lifeprint. com or others for grammar and online Sign Language Dictionaries.

• BSL, Auslan and NZSL are usually considered to belong to a language family known as BANZSL. British Sign Language ( BSL) is the Sign language used in the United Kingdom (UK and is the first or preferred language of Deaf people in the Auslan is the Sign language of the Australian Deaf community. New Zealand Sign Language or NZSL is the main language of the deaf community in New Zealand. BANZSL, or British Australian and New Zealand Sign Language, is the language of which British Sign Language (BSL Auslan and New Zealand Sign Language
• Japanese Sign Language, Taiwanese Sign Language and Korean Sign Language are thought to be members of a Japanese Sign Language family. is the dominant Sign language in Japan. There is little knowledge of sign language and the deaf community prior to the Edo period. Taiwanese Sign Language (TSL is the Sign language most commonly used in Taiwan. Korean Sign Language (Korean Hangeul 수화 Hanja: 手話 Transliteration Soo-hwa/Su-hwa is used by Deaf Koreans in the Republic of
• 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. French Sign Language (langue des signes française or LSF) is the Sign language of the Deaf in the nation of France. 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. French Sign Language (langue des signes française or LSF) is the Sign language of the Deaf in the nation of France. Quebec Sign Language, known in French as Langue des signes québécoise ( LSQ) is a Sign language used in Canada. American Sign Language (or ASL Ameslan is the dominant Sign language of the Deaf community in the United States, in the English-speaking parts Irish Sign Language ( ISL, Teanga Chomharthaíochta na hÉireann is the Sign language of Ireland, used primarily in the Republic of Ireland Russian Sign Language is the Sign language of the Deaf community in Russia. Dutch Sign Language ('Nederlandse Gebarentaal' or 'NGT' 'Sign Language of the Netherlands' or 'SLN' is the Sign language used by deaf people in the Netherlands and Flemish Sign Language ( Vlaamse Gebarentaal or VGT previously known as Belgian Sign Language is the language used by signers in Flanders, which is the northern part Spanish Sign language ( Lengua de signos o señas española) is a language used mainly by Deaf people in Spain and the people who live with them Mexican Sign Language ( “lengua de señas mexicana” or LSM also known by several other names is the language of the Deaf community in the urban regions Brazilian Sign Language, also known as "Libras" (from " Lí ngua Bra sileira de S inais" and previously known as LSB LGB or LSCB
  • A subset of this group includes languages that have been heavily influenced by American Sign Language (ASL), or are regional varieties of ASL. Bolivian Sign Language is sometimes considered a dialect of ASL. Bolivian Sign Language is a modified form of American Sign Language used by approximately 400 deaf Bolivians (1988 E Thai Sign Language is a mixed language derived from ASL and the native sign languages of Bangkok and Chiang Mai, and may be considered part of the ASL family. Thai Sign Language (TSL or Modern Standard Thai Sign Language (MSTSL is the national Sign language of Thailand 's Deaf community and is used in most A mixed language is a Language that arises through the fusion of two source languages normally in situations of thorough Bilingualism. Others possibly influenced by ASL include Ugandan Sign Language, Kenyan Sign Language, Philippine Sign Language and Malaysian Sign Language. Kenyan Sign Language ( English: KSL Swahili: LAK is the language of the Deaf community in Kenya used throughout the country by a large number of the country's Malaysian Sign Language ( Bahasa Isyarat Malaysia, BIM is the sign language in every day use in many parts of Malaysia.
• Anecdotal evidence suggests that Finnish Sign Language, Swedish Sign Language and Norwegian Sign Language belong to a Scandinavian Sign Language family. Finnish Sign Language is the Sign language most commonly used in Finland. Swedish Sign Language (SSL is the Sign language used in Sweden. Norwegian Sign Language (abbreviated NSL) is the preferred Sign language amongst deaf Norwegians NSL is an important language in Norway
• 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. The Icelandic sign language (íslenskt táknmál is the Sign language of the Deaf community in Iceland.
• 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. Hungarian Sign Language is the Sign language of Hungary. This group may also include Romanian, Bulgarian, and Polish sign languages. Polish Sign Language ("Polski Język Migowy" PJM is the language of the Deaf community in Poland.
• Known isolates include Nicaraguan Sign Language, Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, and Providence Island Sign Language. Nicaraguan Sign Language (ISN Spanish Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua, Portuguese Idioma de Signos Nicaragüense) is a signed language The Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL is a Sign language used by about 150 Deaf and many hearing members of the Al-Sayyid Bedouin tribe Providence Island Sign Language (also known as "Providencia Sign Language" is the sign language used by the Deaf community on the small island community of Providence
• 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. A Sprachbund (ˈʃpraːxbʊnt in German plural Sprachbünde) from the German word for “language union” also known as a linguistic area, convergence

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. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU As a consequence, traditional phonemic writing systems are also sequential, with at best diacritics for non-sequential aspects such as stress and tone. A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation

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. SignWriting is a system of writing Sign languages It is highly featural and visually iconic both in the shapes Dr William C Stokoe Jr (pronounced STOH-kee ˈstoʊki William Stokoe (New Hampshire 21 July 1919 – Chevy Chase (Maryland 4 April 2000 was a Scholar who Year 1965 ( MCMLXV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the 1965 Gregorian calendar.

These systems are based on iconic symbols. For other uses of the term see Icon (disambiguation. For a list of icons for use on Wikipedia see WikipediaIcons. The musical instrument is spelled Cymbal. A symbol is something --- such as an object, Picture, written word a sound a piece 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. A pictogram ( also spelled pictogramme) or pictograph is a Symbol representing a Concept, object, activity place or event The Stokoe notation for American Sign Language (ASL was the first writing system designed for a Sign language. 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 is 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 are written one atop the other; when sequential, they are 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.

Media

A demonstration of the French Sign Language word demander (verb to ask). French Sign Language (langue des signes française or LSF) is the Sign language of the Deaf in the nation of France.

See also

• Baby sign (teaching infants sign language before they have the ability to speak)
• Body language
• Gesture
• Chinese number gestures
• Legal recognition of sign languages (status per country/region)
• List of sign languages
• Intercultural competence
• Metacommunicative competence
• Nonverbal communication
• Sign language glove

References

1. ^ Canlas, Loida (2006-07-10). This article is about the usage of Sign language to communicate with Infants and Toddlers. Body language is a term for Communication using Body movements or Gestures instead of or in addition to sounds verbal language or other communication A gesture is a form of Non-verbal communication made with a part of the body used instead of or in combination with verbal communication. Chinese number gestures are a method of using one hand to signify the Natural numbers one through ten The legal recognition of sign languages is one of the major concerns of the international Deaf community Sign language is not universal Like spoken languages sign languages emerge naturally in communities and change through time Intercultural competence is the ability of successful Communication with people of other Cultures This ability can exist in someone at a young age or may be developed Metacommunicative competence is the ability to intervene (in a guiding or constructively controlling way within difficult Conversations and to correct communication Problems Nonverbal communication (NVC is usually understood as the process of Communication through sending and receiving Wordless messages A sign language glove is an electronic device which converts the complex motions of a Sign language into written or spoken words Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 48 BC - Battle of Dyrrhachium, Julius Caesar barely avoids a catastrophic defeat to Pompey in Macedonia. Laurent Clerc: Apostle to the Deaf People of the New World. Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center at Gallaudet University. Gallaudet University is a federally chartered quasi-governmental University for the education of the Deaf and Hard-of-hearing, located in Washington Retrieved on 2007-01-06. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 1066 - Harold Godwinson is crowned King of England. 1205 - Philip of Swabia becomes King
2. ^ Johnston, Trevor, 1989. Auslan: the Sign Language of the Australian Deaf Community

Further reading

• Branson, J. , D. Miller, & I G. Marsaja. (1996). "Everyone here speaks sign language, too: a deaf village in Bali, Indonesia. " In: C. Lucas (ed. ): Multicultural aspects of sociolinguistics in deaf communities. Washington, Gallaudet University Press, pp. 39-5
• Emmorey, Karen; & Lane, Harlan L. (Eds. ). (2000). The signs of language revisited: An anthology to honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0-8058-3246-7.
• Groce, Nora E. (1988). Everyone here spoke sign language: Hereditary deafness on Martha's Vineyard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-27041-X.
• Kendon, Adam. (1988). Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Klima, Edward S. ; & Bellugi, Ursula. (1979). The signs of language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-80795-2.
• Krzywkowska, Grazyna (2006). "Przede wszystkim komunikacja", an article about a dictionary of Hungarian sign language on the internet (Polish).
• Lane, Harlan L. (Ed. ). (1984). The Deaf experience: Classics in language and education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-19460-8.
• Lane, Harlan L. (1984). When the mind hears: A history of the deaf. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-394-50878-5.
• Padden, Carol; & Humphries, Tom. (1988). Deaf in America: Voices from a culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-19423-3.
• Poizner, Howard; Klima, Edward S. ; & Bellugi, Ursula. (1987). What the hands reveal about the brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Sacks, Oliver W. (1989). Seeing voices: A journey into the land of the deaf. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06083-0.
• Sandler, Wendy; & Lillo-Martin, Diane. (2001). Natural sign languages. In M. Aronoff & J. Rees-Miller (Eds. ), Handbook of linguistics (pp. 533-562). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20497-0.
• Stiles-Davis, Joan; Kritchevsky, Mark; & Bellugi, Ursula (Eds. ). (1988). Spatial cognition: Brain bases and development. Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0-8058-0046-8; ISBN 0-8058-0078-6.
• Stokoe, William C. (1960). Sign language structure: An outline of the visual communication systems of the American deaf. Studies in linguistics: Occasional papers (No. 8). Buffalo: Dept. of Anthropology and Linguistics, University of Buffalo.

External links

Note: the articles for specific sign languages (e. Sign language is not universal Like spoken languages sign languages emerge naturally in communities and change through time g. ASL or BSL) may contain further external links, e. American Sign Language (or ASL Ameslan is the dominant Sign language of the Deaf community in the United States, in the English-speaking parts British Sign Language ( BSL) is the Sign language used in the United Kingdom (UK and is the first or preferred language of Deaf people in the g. for learning those languages.

• Deaf Cinema List Films in ASL and other sign languages
• A DeafWiki free-content encyclopedia of deaf and hard hearing
• Dictionary of Sign A wiki style user compiled dictionary of sign language (Various Countries)
• List Serv for Sign Language Linguistics
• The MUSSLAP Project Multimodal Human Speech and Sign Language Processing for Human-Machine Communication.
• Publications of the American Sign Language Linguistics Research Project
• Sign language among North American Indians compared with that among other peoples and deaf-mutes, by Garrick Mallery from Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to Digitize, archive and distribute Cultural works A first annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879–1880
• Pablo Bonet, J. The Smithsonian Institution (smɪθsoʊnɪən is an educational and research institute and associated Museum complex administered and funded by the Government of de (1620) Reduction de las letras y Arte para enseñar á ablar los Mudos, Biblioteca Digital Hispánica (BNE).