Danish Sign Language
| Danish Sign Language | |
|---|---|
| Region | Denmark |
Native speakers |
5,000 in Denmark proper; (2007)[1] also in Greenland |
|
? French sign
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | dsl |
Danish Sign Language (Danske Døves Landsforbund, DDL) is the sign language used in Denmark.
Classification
Wittmann (1991)[2] assigned DSL to the French Sign Language family because of similarities in vocabulary. However, the founder of the first deaf school in Denmark, Peter Atke Castberg (in 1807), was receptive to local sign and so may have introduced FSL signs to the local language rather than FSL itself.[3]
Norwegian Sign Language is generally thought to be a descendant of DSL. However, it may well be a mixture of DSL and indigenous sign, parallel to the situation between Swedish Sign and Finnish Sign.[3]
Icelandic Sign Language is closer; 37% of a set of analyzed signs (Aldersson 2006) were completely different in structure and a further 16% were similar but not the same. Faeroese and Greenlandic Sign are more clearly dialects of DSL.
References
- ↑ Danish Sign Language reference at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013)
- ↑ Wittmann, Henri (1991). "Classification linguistique des langues signées non vocalement." Revue québécoise de linguistique théorique et appliquée 10:1.215–88.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Brita Bergman & Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen, 2010. Transmission of sign languages in the Nordic countries. In Brentari, ed., Sign Languages. Cambridge University Press.
External links
- Ordbog over Dansk Tegnsprog A free online DSL dictionary.
- Aldersson, Russell R. and Lisa J. McEntee-Atalianis. 2007. A Lexical Comparison of Icelandic Sign Language and Danish Sign Language. Birkbeck Studies in Applied Linguistics Vol 2. A Lexical Comparison of Icelandic Sign Language and Danish Sign Language
Sign Language Studies | October 1, 2008 | Aldersson, Russell R; McEntee-Atalianis, Lisa J | 700+ words