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Fingerspelling
Fingerspelling (or dactylology) is the representation of the letter (alphabet), letters of a writing system, and sometimes numeral systems, using only the hands. These manual alphabets (also known as finger alphabets or hand alphabets) have often been used in deaf education and have subsequently been adopted as a distinct part of a number of sign languages. There are about forty manual alphabets around the world. Historically, manual alphabets have had a number of additional applications—including use as ciphers, as mnemonics and in silent religious settings. Forms of manual alphabets As with other forms of manual communication, fingerspelling can be comprehended visually or tactile signing, tactually. The simplest visual form of fingerspelling is tracing the shape of letters in the air and the simplest tactual form is tracing them on the hand. Fingerspelling can be one-handed such as in American Sign Language, French Sign Language and Irish Sign Language, or it can be two-hande ...
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American Sign Language
American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is expressed by employing both manual and nonmanual features. Besides North America, dialects of ASL and ASL-based creole language, creoles are used in many countries around the world, including much of West Africa and parts of Southeast Asia. ASL is also widely learned as a second language, serving as a lingua franca. ASL is most closely related to French Sign Language (LSF). It has been proposed that ASL is a creole language of LSF, although ASL shows features atypical of creole languages, such as agglutination, agglutinative morphology. ASL originated in the early 19th century in the American School for the Deaf (ASD) in Hartford, Connecticut, from a situation of language contact. Since then, ASL use has been propagated widely by schools ...
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Auslan
Auslan (; an abbreviation of Australian Sign Language) is the sign language used by the majority of the Australian Deaf community. Auslan is related to British Sign Language (BSL) and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL); the three have descended from the same proto-language, parent language, and together comprise the BANZSL language family. As with other sign languages, Auslan's grammar and vocabulary is quite different from spoken English language, English. Its origin cannot be attributed to any individual; rather, it is a natural language that emerged spontaneously and has changed over time. Recognition and status Auslan was Recognition of sign languages, recognised by the Australian government as a "community language other than English" and the preferred language of the Deaf community in policy statements in 1987 and 1991. However, this recognition has yet to filter through to many institutions, government departments, and professionals who work with deaf people. The emerging ...
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Sign Language
Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with #Non-manual elements, non-manual markers. Sign languages are full-fledged natural languages with their own grammar and lexicon. Sign languages are not universal and are usually not mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, although there are similarities among different sign languages. Linguists consider both spoken and signed communication to be types of natural language, meaning that both emerged through an abstract, protracted aging process and evolved over time without meticulous planning. This is supported by the fact that there is substantial overlap between the neural substrates of sign and spoken language processing, despite the obvious differences in modality. Sign language should not be confused with body language, a type of non verbal communicati ...
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British Sign Language
British Sign Language (BSL) is a sign language used in the United Kingdom and is the first or preferred language among the Deafness in the United Kingdom, deaf community in the UK. While private correspondence from William Stokoe hinted at a formal name for the language in 1960, the first usage of the term "British Sign Language" in an academic publication was likely by Aaron Cicourel. Based on the percentage of people who reported 'using British Sign Language at home' on the 2011 Scottish Census, the British Deaf Association estimates there are 151,000 BSL users in the UK, of whom 87,000 are Deaf. By contrast, in the 2011 England and Wales Census 15,000 people living in England and Wales reported themselves using BSL as their main language. People who are not deaf may also use BSL, as hearing relatives of deaf people, sign language interpreters or as a result of other contact with the British Deaf community. The language makes use of space and involves movement of the hands, bo ...
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Manual Communication
Manual communication systems use articulation of the hands (hand signs, gestures, etc.) to mediate a message between persons. Being expressed manually, they are received visually and sometimes tactile signing, tactually. When it is the primary form of communication, it may be enhanced by body language and facial expressions. Manual communication is employed in sign languages and manually coded languages, though sign languages also possess Sign language#Non-manual elements, non-manual elements. Other systems of manual communication have been developed for specific purposes, typically in situations where speech is not practical (such as loud environments) or permitted, or where secrecy is desired. Examples * Charades * Diving signals — hand communication methods while scuba diving * Flag semaphores — telegraphy systems using hand-held flags, other objects, or the hands themselves * Finger counting ** Chinese number gestures ** Hand signaling (open outcry), Open outcry hand ...
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Tactile Signing
Tactile signing is a common means of communication used by people with deafblindness. It is based on a sign language or another system of manual communication. "Tactile signing" refers to the mode or medium, i.e. signing (using some form of signed language or code), using ''touch''. It does not indicate whether the signer is using a tactile form of a natural language (e.g. American Sign Language), a modified form of such a visual sign language, a modified form of a manually coded language, or something else. Kinds Until the 1970s, most people who were deaf and blind lived lives of isolation. As professionals became aware of this population, attempts were made to serve deafblind people by creating manual alphabets or modifying sign languages used by deaf-sighted people. See for example Helen Keller National Center, LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired and Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. Several methods of deafblind communication have been developed, inclu ...
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Relationships Between The Manual Alphabets Of Sign Languages
Relationship most often refers to: * Family relations and relatives ** consanguinity * Interpersonal relationship, a strong, deep, or close association or acquaintance between two or more people * Correlation and dependence, relationships in mathematics and statistics between two variables or sets of data * Semantic relationship, an ontology component * Romance (love), a connection between two people driven by love and/or sexual attraction Relationship or Relationships may also refer to: Arts and media * "Relationship" (song), by Young Thug featuring Future * "Relationships" (''As Time Goes By''), an episode of the British TV series ''As Time Goes By'' * The Relationship, an American rock band ** ''The Relationship'' (album), their 2010 album * The Relationships, an English band who played at the 2009 Truck Festival * ''Relationships'', a 1994 album by BeBe & CeCe Winans * ''Relationships'', a 2001 album by Georgie Fame * "Relationship", a song by Lakeside on the 1987 ...
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Peripheral Vision
Peripheral vision, or ''indirect vision'', is vision as it occurs outside the point of fixation, i.e. away from the center of gaze or, when viewed at large angles, in (or out of) the "corner of one's eye". The vast majority of the area in the visual field is included in the notion of peripheral vision. "Far peripheral" vision refers to the area at the edges of the visual field, "mid-peripheral" vision refers to medium eccentricities, and "near-peripheral", sometimes referred to as "para-central" vision, exists adjacent to the center of gaze. Boundaries Inner boundaries The inner boundaries of peripheral vision can be defined in any of several ways depending on the context. In everyday language the term "peripheral vision" is often used to refer to what in technical usage would be called "far peripheral vision." This is vision outside of the range of stereoscopic vision. It can be conceived as bounded at the center by a circle 60° in radius or 120° in diameter, centered aro ...
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International Sign
International Sign (IS) is a pidgin sign language which is used in a variety of different contexts, particularly as an international auxiliary language at meetings such as the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) congress, in some European Union settings, and at some UN conferences, at events such as the Deaflympics, the Miss & Mister Deaf World, and Eurovision, and informally when travelling and socialising. Linguists do not agree on what the term ''International Sign'' means precisely, and empirically derived dictionaries are lacking. Naming While the more commonly used term is International Sign, it is sometimes referred to as Gestuno, or International Sign Pidgin and International Gesture (IG). International Sign (IS) is a term used by the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) and other international organisations. History Deaf people in the Western and Middle Eastern world have gathered together using sign language for 2,000 years. When Deaf people from different sign la ...
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New Zealand Sign Language
New Zealand Sign Language or NZSL () is the main language of the deaf community in New Zealand. It became an official language of New Zealand in April 2006 under the New Zealand Sign Language Act 2006. The purpose of the act was to create rights and obligations in the use of NZSL throughout the legal system and to ensure that the Deaf community had the same access to government information and services as everybody else. According to the 2013 Census, over 20,000 New Zealanders know NZSL. New Zealand Sign Language has its roots in British Sign Language (BSL), and may be technically considered a dialect of British, Australian and New Zealand Sign Language (BANZSL). There are 62.5% similarities found in British Sign Language and NZSL, compared with 33% of NZSL signs found in American Sign Language. Like other natural sign languages, it was devised by and for deaf people, with no linguistic connection to a spoken or written language. NZSL uses the same two-handed manual alphabet ...
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Latvian Sign Language
Latvian Sign Language () is a sign language commonly used by deaf people in Latvia. Linguists use LSL as an acronym for Latvian Sign Language. Policy and education The Official Language Law of 9 December 1999, which came into force on 1 September 2000, gave Latvian Sign Language a legal status in Section 3.3, which stipulates: 'The State shall ensure the development and use of the Latvian sign language for communication with people with impaired hearing.' Since 2008, Latvia has been screening newborns for hearing impairment. The majority of Latvian DHI (deaf and hearing impaired) children live in boarding schools instead of with their families. The country has two specialist schools for DHI children that offer elementary education over a period of 10 or 12 years, one of which uses LSL and signed Latvian in instruction, while the other uses spoken language. In both schools, children primarily communicate amongst themselves in sign language. Aside from the two specialist schoo ...
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Ban Khor Sign Language
Ban Khor Sign Language (BKSL; ) is a village sign language used by at least 400 people of a rice-farming community in the village of Ban Khor in a remote area of Isan (northeastern Thailand). Known locally as ''pasa kidd'' ('language of the mute'), it developed in the 1930s due to a high number of deaf people. Estimated number of users in 2009 was 16 deaf and approximately 400 hearing out of 2741 villagers. It is a language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ..., independent of the other sign languages of Thailand such as Old Bangkok Sign Language and the national Thai Sign Language. Thai Sign Language is increasingly exerting an influence on BKSL. Younger Deaf attend distant residential Deaf schools where they learn Thai Sign Language. Even middle-aged heari ...
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