Northern Ireland Sign Language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Northern Ireland Sign Language (NISL) is a sign language used in Northern Ireland, mainly Belfast. It is a dialect of American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL), mixed together, and as such is a natural language, not a signed representation of English. It is not to be confused with Irish Sign Language, which is also used in Northern Ireland along with BSL.

There is no real linguistic research into the language as of yet. Unionist BSL users (mainly members of the British Deaf Association) and NISL users who were educated in England claim and influence the local policy that it is a Belfast/Northern Ireland dialect of BSL.

NISL came into form when Francis Maginn returned from Gallaudet College (now called Gallaudet University) and asked the Ulster Institution for the Deaf and Dumb (known as the "Old Lisburn Road School") to appoint Thomas Tillinghist as the headteacher from the USA.

There is no evidence on how BSL was brought into Belfast, but with the coming of Maginn and Tillinghist, the history is clear on the introduction of ASL.