British, Australian and New Zealand Sign Language (BANZSL, ), or the British Sign Language (BSL) family, is a

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ...

or grouping encompassing three related sign languages:

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 f ...

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 f ...

and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL). The term ''BANZSL'' was coined informally by the linguists Trevor Johnston and Adam Schembri in the early 2000s. However, in 2024, Schembri remarked that the Wikipedia article on BANZSL had begun describing it with the more specific or authoritative meaning of "the language from which modern BSL and Auslan and New Zealand sign language have descended", a meaning that "took on a life of its own—something that we didn't intend". As a result, Schembri says he and Johnston have disowned the term due to pushback from Deaf communities, concerned that it is replacing the names of each of the three languages. BSL, Auslan and NZSL all have their roots in a Deaf sign language used in Britain during the 19th century. The three languages in question are related in their use of similar grammar,

manual alphabet Fingerspelling (or dactylology) is the representation of the 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 ...

, and high degree of lexical overlap.

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 i ...

and the BANZSL varieties are not part of the same language family. However, there is still significant overlap in vocabulary, probably due largely to relatively recent borrowing of lexicon by signers of all three BANZSL varieties, with many younger signers unaware which signs are recent imports. Between Auslan, BSL and NZSL, 82% of signs are identical (per

Swadesh list A Swadesh list () is a compilation of cultural universal, tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. That is, a Swadesh list is a list of forms and concepts which all languages, without exception, have terms for, such as ...

s). When considering identical as well as similar or related signs there are 98%

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...

signs between the languages. By comparison, ASL and BANZSL have only 31% signs identical, or 44% cognate. According to Henri Wittmann (1991), Swedish Sign Language also descends from BSL. From Swedish SL arose

Portuguese Sign Language Portuguese Sign language () is a sign language used mainly by deaf people in Portugal. It is recognized in the present Constitution of Portugal. It was significantly influenced by Swedish Sign Language, through a deaf education, school for the De ...

and Finnish Sign Language, the latter with local admixture; Danish Sign Language is largely mutually intelligible with Swedish SL, though Wittmann places it in the

French Sign Language family The French Sign Language (LSF, from ) or Francosign family is a language family of sign languages which includes French Sign Language and American Sign Language. The LSF family descends from Old French Sign Language (VLSF), which developed among ...

. Anderson (1979) instead suggested that Swedish Sign, German Sign and British Sign share one origin in a "North-West European" sign language.

Languages

*BSL (sign attested from 1644 may not be BSL), with approximately 151,000 users **Australian SL (1860. ASL and ISL influences), with approximately 10 000 users *** Papua New Guinea Sign Language (), which is a creole formed with Auslan, used by 30,000 people **New Zealand SL (1800s), used by approximately 20,000 people **Northern Ireland SL (19th century - with

and

Irish Sign Language Irish Sign Language (ISL, ) is the sign language of Ireland, used primarily in the Republic of Ireland. It is also used in Northern Ireland, alongside British Sign Language (BSL). Irish Sign Language is more closely related to French Sign Langu ...

influences) **South African SL (somewhere between 1846 & 1881), used by perhaps 235,000 people **Maritime SL (), with perhaps 100 extant users **?

Swedish Sign Language family The Swedish Sign Language family is a language family of sign languages, including Swedish Sign Language, Portuguese Sign Language, Cape Verdian Sign Language, Finnish Sign Language and Eritrean Sign Language, Eritrean Sign (although going throug ...

(1800) *** Swedish Sign Language (1800) *** Finnish SL (1850s, with local admixture) *** Finland-Swedish SL (1850s, a middle form between Finnish and Swedish SL) *** Eritrean Sign (1955, with much local admixture) *** Portuguese SL (1823) *** Cape Verdian Sign (1990s, with local admixture)

Notes

References

* Johnston, T. (2003). ''BSL, Auslan and NZSL: Three signed languages or one?'' In A. Baker, B. van den Bogaerde & O. Crasborn (Eds.), "Cross-linguistic perspectives in sign language research: Selected papers from TISLR 2000" (pp. 47–69). Hamburg: Signum Verlag. * McKee, D. & G. Kennedy (2000). Lexical Comparison of Signs from American, Australian, British, and New Zealand Sign Languages. In K. Emmorey and H. Lane (Eds), "The signs of language revisited: an anthology to honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima". Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. * {{sign language navigation BANZSL Sign Language family Deaf culture

Languages

See also

Notes

References