Maltese Sign Language ( mt, Lingwa tas-Sinjali Maltija, LSM) is a young

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 l ...

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

. It developed into its modern form c. 1980 with the establishment of the first deaf club in Malta and subsequently with its use in education for the deaf. LSM's prior history is unrecorded, though there are some signs which indicate contact with

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 ...

(Malta was a British colony until 1964). These signs are relatively few, however, and LSM is not part of the BSL family. Maria Galea has described the use of

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 ...

when used to write Maltese Sign Language. The Maltese

public broadcaster Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

PBS Ltd. began airing a nightly newscast in LSM on its

TVM2 TVMNews+ (formerly TVM 2) is a terrestrial television network in Malta, operated by national broadcaster Public Broadcasting Services. Unlike the more wide-ranging TVM network, TVMNews+ focuses primarily on newscasting and educational televisio ...

network in 2012.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography *Marie Azzopardi-Alexander, "Iconicity and the development of Maltese Sign Language", in Fabri, ed., ''Maltese Linguistics: A Snapshot'', 2009 {{sign language navigation Sign language isolates Languages of Malta