British, Australian and New Zealand Sign Language (BANZSL), is the language of which

British Sign Language British Sign Language (BSL) is a sign language used in the United Kingdom (UK), and is the first or preferred language among the Deaf community in the UK. Based on the percentage of people who reported 'using British Sign Language at home' on ...

(BSL),

Auslan Auslan () is the majority sign language of the Australian Deaf community. The term ''Auslan'' is a portmanteau of "Australian Sign Language", coined by Trevor Johnston in the 1980s, although the language itself is much older. Auslan is relat ...

and

New Zealand Sign Language New Zealand Sign Language or NZSL ( mi, te reo Turi) 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 ...

(NZSL) may be considered dialects. These three languages may be considered dialects of a single language (BANZSL) due to their use of the same 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 the high degree of lexical overlap. The term BANZSL was coined by

Trevor Johnston Trevor Johnston is an Australian expert on Auslan. Johnston received his from the University of Sydney in 1989 for his work on Auslan. Johnston was responsible for coining the term ''Auslan'', and created the first Auslan dictionary, which was ...

and Adam Schembri. BSL, Auslan and NZSL all have their roots in a deaf sign language used in Britain during the 19th century.

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 of America and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual lang ...

and BANZSL are unrelated sign languages. However, there is still significant overlap in vocabulary, probably due largely to relatively recent borrowing of lexicon by signers of all three dialects of BANZSL, with many younger signers unaware which signs are recent imports. Between Auslan, BSL and NZSL, 82% of signs are identical (per

Swadesh list The Swadesh list ("Swadesh" is pronounced ) is a classic compilation of tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. Translations of the Swadesh list into a set of languages allow researchers to quantify the interrelatednes ...

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 in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...

signs between the languages. By comparison, ASL and BANZSL have only 31% signs identical, or 44% cognate. According to

Henri Wittmann Henri Wittmann (born 1937) is a Canadian linguist from Quebec. He is best known for his work on Quebec French. Biography Henri (Hirsch) Wittmann was born in Alsace in 1937. After studying with André Martinet at the Sorbonne, he moved to North ...

(1991),

Swedish Sign Language Swedish Sign Language (SSL; ) is the sign language used in Sweden. It is recognized by the Swedish government as the country's official sign language, and hearing parents of deaf individuals are entitled to access state-sponsored classes that f ...

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 The present Constitution of Portugal was adopted in 1976 after the Carnation Revolution. It was ...

and

Finnish Sign Language Finnish Sign Language () is the sign language most commonly used in Finland. There are 3,000 ''(2012 estimate)'' Finnish deaf who have Finnish Sign Language as a first language. As the Finnish system records users by their written language, not ...

, the latter with local admixture;

Danish Sign Language Danish Sign Language ( da, Dansk tegnsprog, DTS) is the sign language used in Denmark. Classification Henri Wittmann (1991) Wittmann, Henri (1991). "Classification linguistique des langues signées non vocalement." Revue québécoise de linguist ...

is largely mutually intelligible with Swedish SL, though Wittmann places it in the

French Sign Language family The French Sign Language (LSF, from ''langue des signes française'') 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 Langua ...

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 speakers *** 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, ga, Teanga Chomharthaíochta na hÉireann) 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 ...

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, and Finnish Sign Language. Swedish SL started about 1800. Wittmann (1991) proposes that it descends from Britis ...

(1800) *** Portuguese SL (1823) *** Finnish SL (1850s, with local admixture)

Notes

References

* Johnston, T. (2002). ''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