Brazilian Sign Language ( pt, Língua Brasileira de Sinais ) is the

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 markers. Sign ...

used by deaf communities of urban

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. It is also known in short as Libras () and variously abbreviated as LSB, LGB or LSCB (; "Brazilian Cities Sign Language").Ferreira-Brito, Lucinda and Langevin, Rémi (1994), The Sublexical Structure of a Sign Language, ''Mathématiques, Informatique et Sciences Humaines'' 32:125, 1994, pp. 17–40

Recognition and status

Brazilian Sign Language is well-established; several dictionaries, instructional videos and a number of articles on the linguistic features of the language have been published. It has dialects across Brazil reflecting regional and sociocultural differences. A strong sign language law was passed by the

National Congress of Brazil The National Congress of Brazil ( pt, Congresso Nacional do Brasil) is the legislative body of Brazil's federal government. Unlike the state legislative assemblies and municipal chambers, the Congress is bicameral, composed of the Federal Se ...

on April 24, 2002, and (in 2005) is in the process of being implemented.Libras law
(in Portuguese) The law mandates the use of Brazilian Sign Language in education and government services. Escola Estadual de Educação Especial Dr

Educational approaches have evolved from

oralism Oralism is the education of deaf students through oral language by using lip reading, speech, and mimicking the mouth shapes and breathing patterns of speech.Through Deaf Eyes. Diane Garey, Lawrence R. Hott. DVD, PBS (Direct), 2007. Oralism ca ...

to Total Communication and

bilingualism Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all ...

. In addition to being recognized nationally since 2002, Libras has also been made official at the municipal level in

Belo Horizonte Belo Horizonte (, ; ) is the sixth-largest city in Brazil, with a population around 2.7 million and with a metropolitan area of 6 million people. It is the 13th-largest city in South America and the 18th-largest in the Americas. The metropol ...

Curitiba Curitiba () is the capital and largest city in the state of Paraná in Brazil. The city's population was 1,948,626 , making it the eighth most populous city in Brazil and the largest in Brazil's South Region. The Curitiba Metropolitan area ...

and

Salvador Salvador, meaning " salvation" (or "saviour") in Catalan, Spanish, and Portuguese may refer to: * Salvador (name) Arts, entertainment, and media Music *Salvador (band), a Christian band that plays both English and Spanish music ** ''Salvador'' ( ...

. In

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

, the teaching of Libras was made official in the curriculum of the municipal school system. April 24th was made official as the National Day of Brazilian Sign Language.

Alphabet

Libras

fingerspelling 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 ...

uses a

one-handed manual alphabet The American Manual Alphabet (AMA) is a manual alphabet that augments the vocabulary of American Sign Language. Letters and digits The letters and digits are signed as follows. In informal contexts, the handshapes are not made as distinctly as the ...

similar to that used by the

French Sign Language French Sign Language (french: langue des signes française, LSF) is the sign language of the deaf in France and French-speaking parts of Switzerland. According to ''Ethnologue'', it has 100,000 native signers. French Sign Language is relate ...

family. There are 44 distinct handshapes used in the language.

Writing

Sutton SignWriting Sutton SignWriting, or simply SignWriting, is a system of writing sign languages. It is highly featural and visually iconic, both in the shapes of the characters, which are abstract pictures of the hands, face, and body, and in their spatial arr ...

is the dominant writing system in Brazil. A master's in linguistics dissertation titled "A arte de escrever em Libras" by Gabriela Otaviani Barbosa found that SignWriting is used in 18 Federal Universities and in 12 public schools in Brazil. Historical efforts were commonly transcribed using Portuguese words, written in upper case, to stand for each equivalent Libras morpheme. Transcription of Libras signs using

SignWriting Sutton SignWriting, or simply SignWriting, is a system of writing sign languages. It is highly featural and visually iconic, both in the shapes of the characters, which are abstract pictures of the hands, face, and body, and in their spatial arr ...

has been in place since at least 1997 with the SignNet Project in Porto Alegre and Fernando Capovilla's dictionaries in São Paulo. The University of Santa Catarina at Florianopolis (UFSC) has required courses in SignWriting as the preferred form of LIBRAS transcription. SignWriting is cited as being useful in the pedagogy of young children. The Federal University of Santa Catarina has accepted a dissertation written in Brazilian Sign Language using Sutton SignWriting for a master's degree in linguistics. The dissertation "A escrita de expressões não manuais gramaticais em sentenças da Libras pelo Sistema signwriting" by João Paulo Ampessan states that "the data indicate the need for on-manual expressionsusage in writing sign language".

Deaf and sign language organizations

The most important deaf organization is FENEIS, the ''Federação Nacional de Educação e Integração dos Surdos'' (National Federation of Deaf Education and Integration). There are a number of regional organizations in

Caxias do Sul Caxias do Sul (), is a city in Rio Grande do Sul, Southern Brazil, situated in the state's mountainous Serra Gaúcha region. It was established by Italian immigrants on June 20, 1890. Today it is the second largest city in the state of Rio Grand ...

and

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a state in the southern region of Brazil. It is the fifth-most-populous state and the ninth largest by area. Located in the southernmost part of the country, Rio Grande do Sul is border ...

Classification

Wittmann (1991) Wittmann, Henri (1991).
Classification linguistique des langues signées non vocalement
" Revue québécoise de linguistique théorique et appliquée 10:1.215–88. posits that Brazilian Sign Language is a language isolate (a 'prototype' sign language), though one developed through stimulus diffusion from an existing sign language, likely

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/or

Footnotes

References

*Gama, Flausine José da Costa: Iconographia dos Signaes dos Surdos-Mudos. conography of Signs for the Deaf-Mute Rio de Janeiro : E.+H.Laemmert 1875 *Capovilla, F. C., and W. D. Raphael, eds. 2001. ''Dicionário enciclopédico ilustrado trilíngüe da Língua de Sinais Brasileira: Vols. 1 (Sinais de A a L) & 2 (Sinais de M a Z)''. rilingual illustrated encyclopedic dictionary of Brazilian Sign Language, Vols. 1 and 2São Paulo: Edusp, FAPESP, Fundação Vitae, Feneis, Brasil Telecom. Volume One: Volume Two: *de Souza, Guilherme Lourenco. "Verb agreement in Brazilian Sign Language: morphophonology, syntax & semantics." (2018). Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais: doctoral dissertation. *Lourenço, Guilherme. "Verb agreement in Brazilian Sign Language: Morphophonology, syntax & semantics." ''Sign Language & Linguistics'' 22, no. 2 (2019): 275–281. *Xavier, André Nogueira and Sherman Wilcox. 2014. Necessity and possibility modals in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras). ''Linguistic Typology'' 18(3): 449 – 488. {{Authority control Sign language isolates Languages of Brazil Deaf culture in Brazil Sign languages of Brazil