Talk:Sign language

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[edit] Capitals

Should the names of specific sign languages be capitalized? American Sign Language is capitalized, for example, but British sign language isn't. Which is correct? Bryan Derksen

My hunch was that British sign language should be capitalized and a Google search has confirmed this. On the first three pages of results there is only 1 example of the term not capitalized. This appears to be a proper noun, like American Sign Language.--maveric149
I love the new "move this page" function. So trivially easy... :) Bryan Derksen
Dude! How long has that been around? I've been doing things the hard way forever. Does it also fix redirects? --maveric149
Been around a couple of weeks, but I keep forgetting to use it. This was my first time. :) Yes, it automatically handles redirects by default, though you can turn that off if]]

[edit] Several languages

In Canada, there are several sign languages. We don't all use American Sign Language. In Quebec and Ontario, Deaf people from Francophone backgrounds typically will use Langue des Signes Quebecois. In New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, some older Deaf people still use Maritime Sign Language (although it is gradually evolving to be more and more like ASL). There are also reports of at least one sign language used by Deaf people in isolated Inuit communities.

Lford 20:07, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I think there is some confusion about the dialects of sign language. It is well-documented in the history (not to mention evident today) of the deaf (See, "Harlan Lane, "When The Mind Hears: A History of The Deaf") that Canadians use American Sign Language and it was brought to Canada by Canadian students and teachers who attended the Hartford Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb in the 19th century. Quebec, indeed, uses it's own sign language but I wonder if it is not a localized dialect of French Sign Language. The United States has four distince dialects of American Sign Language: 1.) Eastern, 2) Southern, 3) Southern Black and 4). Western. I am caused to believe that the forms of sign language you are citing may be Canadian dialects of ASL. It would help if you would cite the source of your information. Ray Foster 00:08, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

LSQ (Langue des signes québécoise or Langue des signes du Québec) is as much a "localized dialect" of LSF (Langue des signes francaise) as ASL is... It just so happens that Sign languages sometimes have a different evolution than their oral equivalents. Where French and Quebec oral languages have a similar origin (until 1760), they evolved differently for the past 250 years or so. As far as LSQ is concerned, it is not directly linked with LSF since Quebec and France had only minor relationships when LSF was created (Quebec was then under British rule... some would say even today... but that's a different story !). Furthermore, LSQ borrowed some ASL signs to express North American concepts and words, especially in the Ottawa and Montreal areas where there are significant proportion of ASL users (because of the English speaking populations in those areas). LSQ is much more "independant" from ASL influence in other areas of Quebec, especially in Quebec City. Michel Marcotte 07 Oct 2005

I would like to confirm what Michel Marcotte said. LSQ is indeed its own language, and not a dialect of ASL or LSF. -Etoile 16:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missing text

Could someone explain why we've lost a huge chunk of text? [1] -- Tarquin 08:28, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It's because I moved the "History of Sign language" section to Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet because it was about him and not about the history of sign language. -- Cymydog Naakka 01:25, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Article Too ASL-Focused

I think this article is really getting some good points out, specifically about the differentiation of the world's signed languages, but also contend that it is presently focused too strongly on ASL. Specifically, in the linguistics section, many of the concepts discussed are gleaned from research conducted on ASL users and can't be said to commute to other languages. I propose that the scale of this article be reduced significantly by divesting (if you will) its parts to articles on the languages that each refer to. For example, the Flemish signwriting system discussion should be moved to the article on Flemish Sign Language, the History of Sign Language article is unnecessary because each language has its own history, etc. All that should remain is a discussion of why there is more than one sign language in the world, followed by a list of the Ethnologue's known systems (languages). Thoughts? -- Imagineertobe 04:27, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Almost all the external links are about ASL specifically and not about sign languages in the generic sense Roger (talk) 07:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Analogy to tone of voice?

"As an illustration, in English, one could make the sentence, 'I drove here.' To add information about the drive though, one would have to make a longer sentence or even add an additional sentence. Such as, 'I drove here and it was very pleasant.' Or, 'I drove here. It was a nice drive.'"

Couldn't vocal inflection indicate that the trip was pleasant? --Damian Yerrick 05:20, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Not quite. You could say (in English) "I drove there" in a pleasant voice, but it wouldn't specifically mean the drive was pleasant. In sign languages the non-manual signals tend to have less ambiguous meaning, although they are somewhat similiar to tone. The example might not be too good either, as there's other things that can be expressed concurrently, ie, you could sign "I drove there" at the same time as indicating that it was a bumpy trip. The article should probably be updated to reflect this. --Pengo 07:34, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
But tone, as well as facial expression and body language, can change the meaning of a spoken sentence. It can definitely be more ambiguous than sign language, but meaning can still be conveyed in ways beyond merely the spoken words. Pnkrockr 20:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] international sign language

is there any sort of international sign language?

Not a really universal one, but to my knowledge, American Sign Language serves as a basis for many 'national' sign languages which would make them more or less mutually intelligible. — mark ✎ 00:48, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I'd have to disagree - in fact there is an international sign "language" variously known as Gestuno, International Sign Language (or just plain "international sign"), developed by the World Federatiopn of the Deaf to facilitate communication between deaf people from different linguistic backgrounds. It draws heavily on ASL and European sign languages, with an emphasis on signs that are strongly visually intuitive in meaning. It is a pidgin rather than a language, with more simplified grammar than true deaf sign languages, and is not used as the primary language of any deaf people.
I think we're talking about the same thing here. Thanks for the clarification! — mark ✎ 03:42, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to interject that the distinction "universal" not "international" is the one made by the unknowledgable. International means: "Extending across or transcending national boundaries" which some sign languages do. Universal means, in the context of deaf people: "Encompassing all of the members of a class or group" which sign languages do not do. Unknowledgable people believe sign language of any kind can be used and understood by any deaf person anywhere in the world. That's the view of sign language as "universal" not "International". Wouldn't you agree? I'm going to change "Contrary to popular belief sign language is not international" to "...universal". It's just that one reference in the second paragraph of the article. Let me know what you think. I'd be satisfied with a persuasive argument to the contrary. Ray Foster 23:30, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Fair point. I fully agree. — mark ✎ 01:04, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Usually or always originated by deaf?

I previously edited a sentence that read that sign langugages are usually developed by deaf... I took out usually because sign languages have always been developed exclusively by deaf communities. Ds13 then reinserted the word usually citing baby sign, Makaton, and the sign language of American Indians as examples of sign languages being invented by hearing peolpe also. First I edited the section on American Indian signing to reflect that this was a case of a pidgin, and not a language so this example does not apply. As for Makaton, it is like Signed English which is simply a visual code for the English langauge and not a language in its own right. And lastly, baby sign which is just a collection of signed vocabulary used as a crutch until a baby has matured to the point that it can coordinate the many muscles in the vocal tract sufficiently enough to speak. Baby sign leads to many good things (babies that suffer less frustration and enjoy more cognitive stimulation) but it does not lead to sign language. Baby sign does not have its own syntax or grammar. This also is not a case of a sign language originating within a hearing population. Therefore, what is left is the natural sign languages which have all emerged from deaf communities. And so, I took usually out of the sentence since it is not usually the case, it is always the case. Qaz 08:44, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for starting this discussion topic, Qaz. You raise good points, though while a pidgin is not a natural language (and not yet a Creole language), it's still a language (contact language). Anyways, Gallaudet University (arguably an authority on sign languages) divides sign languages into 3 categories (deaf sign languages, code systems, and alternative sign languages). Here's a good reference. As the reference says, "alternative sign languages are non-Deaf sign languages". It goes on to say that these alternative sign languages are developed and used primarily by some groups of hearing people for various special purposes when speaking is not possible or not permitted, though those languages may also be used by Deaf members of that particular group. Thus, I feel "usually" is a better word to use here than "always". Can we defer a semantics debate to the authority of Gallaudet? --Ds13 09:14, 2005 Feb 24 (UTC)

Historically, hearing people have often been misattributed as the originators of sign languages. That is the trap I was trying to keep this article from falling into. The problem I guess is with people using the word language to mean more than one thing. I was approaching it from a linguistics point of view since the article is about a language in the linguistics sense of the word. In everyday parlance, even things like mathematics and computer code are referred to as languages but from the linguistics perspective, to be deemed a language requires a fixed set of conditions be met. To me, a pidgin is not a language and calling it a contact language is just a way to describe its use and its reason for being after you have already established that it is not a full language.

All that being said, if you or others feel that the word usually really should be reinserted in this case and that we should use the more colloquial meaning of the word language in this article, I will yield the point. Qaz 17:59, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Qaz, I share your concern and I wouldn't want to see any more people fall into that perception trap you describe, either. And I think we can avoid that without dismissing the non-Deaf sign languages. Let's just use two sentences and cover everything safely and accurately. Saying something like "all sign languages used by the Deaf have been developed by the Deaf" would seem to cover that concern. Following that, it could be said that "Non-Deaf sign languages also exist, some having been developed by hearing people with a desire or requirement for non-verbal communication (see list below..." or something along those lines. --Ds13 19:53, 2005 Feb 24 (UTC)

[edit] Changed headings

I redid the heading arrangement some. Mostly, I narrowed what fell under the 'linguistics of sign' heading. I also moved some content up or down in the article as it seemed appropriate. Qaz

[edit] List of sign languages

The longs lists at the end of the article were getting a bit ungainly so I moved them to their own article and put a link to them under the 'See also' heading. It reduces the number of headings and leads to a tighter TOC. Qaz

[edit] ASL in Mexico?

Can someone please back up this article's claim that ASL is used in Mexico?

I'll refute it if you like. See this article:
http://www.sil.org/mexico/lenguajes-de-signos/G009a-Identidad-MFS.htm
Maybe it's used up in the border regions, some crossborder influence, but by no stretch is it the dominant form of sign language. LSM is.
Just as there are bilingual Spanish & English speakers there are bilingual LSM & ASL signers in the border regions of both countries. Roger (talk) 06:47, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mutual Intelligibility

The start of this article states that different sign languages are more mutually understandable than different spoken languages. Under "Sign Languages' relationships with spoken languages" we read "On the whole, sign languages are independent of spoken languages and they follow their own developmental paths. For example, British Sign Language and American Sign Language are different and mutually unintelligible (other than iconic signs)..."

I think the introduction needs to be clarified - are all sign languages somewhat mutually intelligible beyond iconic signs? None? Or only some?

No they aren't. Many are completely unintelligible. However, iconic signs play a rather large roll in SLs.
Communicating with 'iconic signs' in sign languages is a bit like communicating with gesture in oral languages. It's very easy to say eat, sleep, I need to pee! etc. with gesture. In addition, because mime forms a much greater part of sign languages than it does oral languages, deaf people can usually communicate more effectively with gesture than hearing people can. If you imagine an oral culture that used a lot of realistic onomatopoeia, saying things like "I was driving vroom vroom to work, when a bee bzzzz flew in the window", you might expect that they could communicate very effectively through onomatopoeia with people who spoke an entirely different language. But this of course depends on culture. English and Chinese speakers will have more difficulty communicating through onomatopoeia that English and Spanish speakers, and likewise ASL and CSL speakers will likely have more difficulty communicating through mime than ASL and ISL speakers do.
Also, even most iconic signs are so conventionalized that they are opaque to speakers of languages that don't share them. kwami 00:10, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
The second paragraph is self contradictory. Sign languages either are or arn't mutually intelligible. Which is it? Roger (talk) 16:34, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Verbal communication

Why is this page categorized as nonverbal communication? 59.112.50.178 12:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Because it's an unspoken language. --Kmsiever 15:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
From the NVC article: "Scholars in this field usually use a strict sense of the term "verbal", meaning "of or concerned with words," and do not use "verbal communication" as a synonym for oral or spoken communication. Thus, sign languages and writing are generally understood as forms of verbal communication, as both make use of words". ntennis

[edit] Manual communicators?

Is there a word that can be used to summarize the label "person who uses sign language to communicate"? e.g. "signer" or some similar colloquial construction.

I ask because, as the deafness article correctly points out, it can be difficult to be labeled using a minus qualifier, i.e. "unable to hear", and, well, "person who uses sign language to communicate" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue in an average conversation. Thanks!  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  07:22, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I would certainly use the word "signer" for someone who uses sign language. One's ability to sign has no relationship with one's hearing status, as there are certainly plenty of deaf people who do not sign, and plenty of hearing people who do sign. Therefore it is perfectly appropriate to have a colloquialism for "person who uses sign language" and "signer" is the most-accepted English-language term for this. -Etoile 17:05, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
OK, great, I'll take your word for it. Thanks!  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  04:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] aphasia

isn't sign language also for people suffering from aphasia ? the article only mentions deaf people in the beginning

[edit] Wikipedia in American Sign Language proposed

Please see meta:Requests for new languages/Wikipedia American Sign Language 2. Thank you.--Pharos 21:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I have commented on this on the relevant page, but I'm all in favour of Wiki being converted into different sign languages, not only ASL, but BSL also. I'm not certain but are they the two most used sign languages in the world. I'm not sure whether ISL is used more than BSL though, but ultimately sign language is the prefered language of the majority of Deaf people and in some cases their only language.--NeilEvans 23:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I sent an e-mail to Valerie Sutton, and she was very receptive to the idea of developing an ASL Wikipedia in SignWriting. She even said her group had grant money that it could use to develop articles.--Pharos 05:17, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

==Pix== The picture that is near the top of this article is a poor one for the topic because both hands of the interpreter are in a position such that they look like relaxed hands. If it were not for the article that the picture appeared in I would not even think the person was signing. Qaz 13:16, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I added a picture of 2 interpreters, we can see their hand gestures clearly

[edit] LLoyd anderson?

If he hasn't published his work, why is there a reference to it in an encyclopedia? That sentence should go, or grow a citation.

[edit] left handed signing of letters

i figure this is the most likely place to get my question answered so please pardon me! JSL allows you to choose your dominant hand for signing, and i can only assume that ASL and others are the same, but when it comes to letters, i.e. images that cannot be mirrored is it proper to just ignore the fact that they will be drawn in a different area of space (e.g. ASL's sign for J will be written towards the outside instead of in) or should the signs be mirrored as all of the others are?

on that point, is it at all difficult to understand left handed signers, or does it perhaps slightly awkward, in the way left shooting golfers sometimes look (or is that just me?). thanks kindly! 125.28.6.4 19:25, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

While this is not a forum, I will answer your question with regard to British Sign Language. Firstly, a left-handed signer would use their left hand as the "pen" and their right hand as the "paper". Any action a right-handed signer would do is mirrored by a left-handed signer. With regard to the "J" from ASL, a right-handed signer would draw a "J" with their little finger following the shape of the letter "J", a left-handed signer would reverse this and from the signer's point of view, the "J" would be drawn in mirror image. Secondly, on the whole it is not difficult to understand left-handed signers, although to the majority of right-handed signers some signs would look "awkward" as they would be the mirror of the sign they would use. Hope this helps answer your question.--NeilEvans 20:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

thats great, thanks for the info. cheers! 125.28.5.24 08:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Speech is not just linear

Oral language is linear. Only one sound can be made or received at a time.

This simplifies speech. For example, vowel articulation necessarily has formants. These are bands of acoustic energy that move through different frequencies simultaneously. One formant may be moving up while another is moving down. A listener must track at least two of these formants at once to distinguish all of the vowels of English (I'll follow up this post with some citations).

Formants are a separate sound from vocal fold vibration. You can demonstrate this to yourself by whispering a set of words, and then saying them normally. You can interpret the whispered set because the formants are there. Normal speech will add vocal fold vibration to the formants. Thus the "sound" of a spoken word incorporates multiple sounds happening at once: formants and vocal fold vibration.

Perhaps a more accurate distinction could be made between the nature of producing sign, versus that of speech? Both rely on tracking simultaneous, separable signals.

72.33.108.164 17:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC)/\/\/\/

Phonemically, morphologically, and syntactically linear, with the exception of suprasegmentals. Maybe you can come up with an easy way to capture this? kwami 19:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Is sign language not phonemically, morphologically and syntactically linear as well? At any rate, I we need the assistance of a source(s) if we're going to make a claim one way or another. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Divespluto (talk • contribs) 09:41, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unicode?

Hi, I can't seem to find anything on the net regarding representing sign language in Unicode. (I see one proposal paper, but...) Anybody know about where this may be at? (whichever variety of written sign it is...) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brettz9 (talk • contribs) 19:10, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

See SignWriting Roger (talk) 16:32, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Legal status

This article needs a section on the legal status of Sign Languages around the world. The example I know best is that of South Africa. South African Sign Language (SASL) is not an official language as such but is "officially recognised". There is an active lobby for SASL to get full official status. As I understand it govermnent departments and services are required to make "reasonable provision" for SASL in terms of various laws and regulations regarding services for persons with disabilities, but they are not compelled to do so except in a court of law when a signer is directly involved in the case. Roger (talk) 10:33, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Military sign

I have not been able to find anything on Wikipedia about the sign "language" (I supose it is actually a code rather than a language) used by soldiers to communicate information and commands when silence is required. Roger (talk) 08:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sign Language(s) plural or singular?

I think the article title as well as most instances within the article should use the plural form "Sign Languages". Roger (talk) 09:25, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. It's good you brought that up for discussion. On the one hand, we have an article for "Bantu languages" etc., not "Bantu language". One the other, we generally use the singular where possible, and it is very common to speak of "sign language" as a generic singular, whereas "sign languages" is less common. It seems to me that the difference would be that "sign language" would be an article about sign language as a medium of communication, just as the general language article is called "language", not "languages". A "sign languages" article would be about the various individual SLs, a subset of the "languages of the world". — kwami (talk) 17:54, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
I feel that "Sign Language" in the singular implies that one is speaking of a specific individual (though not necessarily named) language. When one is speaking of the collective "class" of sign languages one should use the plural form. One would never say "The xxxxxx tribe speaks Bantu language" whereas one could say "They speak a Bantu language" or "They speak Zulu, one of the Bantu languages".
This article is about the "class" Sign Languages - in this sense it is exactly analogous to the article "Bantu Languages". Using the singular form for the "class" just reinforces the commonly held erroneous belief that there is only one "Sign Language". The writers of the South African constitution made exactly this error when they gave "official recognition" to "sign language" instead of "South African Sign Language". Roger (talk) 20:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually, it isn't analogous. Most of this article discusses sign, as a form of speech, not the distribution, characteristics, and relationships of individual sign languages. Examples are drawn from whichever language is convenient, with no attempt at being representative. Also, sign languages do not form a family unit the way Bantu languages do. Language doesn't imply there is only one language in the world, and writing doesn't imply there is only one alphabet. There is a List of language families#Sign languages sub-article, which does require the plural, and which should probably be merged here. — kwami (talk) 20:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I love sign language because then the blind doesn't have to miss out on ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.175.65.20 (talk) 00:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)