Chinese Sign Language (
abbreviated
An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...
CSL or ZGS; ) is the official
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 ...
of the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. It is unrelated to
Taiwanese Sign Language
Taiwan Sign Language (TSL; ) is the sign language most commonly used by the deaf and hard of hearing in Taiwan.
History
The beginnings of Taiwan Sign Language date from 1895.Fischer, Susan ''et al.'' (2010). "Variation in East Asian Sign Langua ...
and is known in the
Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
as ''Wénfǎ Shǒuyǔ'' ().
History
The first Deaf school in China,
Chefoo
Yantai, formerly known as Chefoo, is a coastal prefecture-level city on the Shandong Peninsula in northeastern Shandong province of People's Republic of China. Lying on the southern coast of the Bohai Strait, Yantai borders Qingdao on the ...
(''Zhifu'' 芝罘, alternative name of
Yantai
Yantai, Postal Map Romanization, formerly romanization of Chinese, known as Chefoo, is a coastal prefecture-level city on the Shandong Peninsula in northeastern Shandong province of People's Republic of China. Lying on the southern coast of ...
) School for the Deaf, was established in 1887 by the
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
missionary
A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...
Annetta Thompson Mills. From the School, a sign language based on an
oralist
Oralism is the Education of the deaf, education of deaf students through oral language by using lip reading, speech, and mimicking the Articulatory phonetics, mouth shapes and breathing patterns of speech.Through Deaf Eyes. Diane Garey, Lawrence ...
approach to deaf education was developed, coming out of the
Milan Conference of 1880. Another school for the deaf was established in Shanghai in 1897 by a French Catholic organization. Chinese Sign Language was grown out of these two bases.
Schools, workshops and farms for the Deaf in diverse locations are the main ways that CSL has been able to spread in China so well. Other deaf people who are not connected to these gathering places tend to use sets of gestures developed in their own homes, known as
home sign
Home sign (or kitchen sign) is a gestural communication system, often invented spontaneously by a deaf child who lacks accessible linguistic input. Home sign systems often arise in families where a deaf child is raised by hearing parents and is iso ...
.
The Chinese National Association of the Deaf was created by deaf people mostly from the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
in 1992.
The main reason for the creation of the organization was to raise the quality of living for the deaf, which was behind the quality of living standards provided for other disabled persons. Their main goals are to improve the welfare of the deaf, encourage
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
about the Deaf and Chinese Sign Language, and promote the needs of the Deaf community in China.
Classification
There are two main dialects of Chinese Sign Language: Southern CSL (centered on Shanghai and influenced by
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 related ...
) and Northern CSL (coming out of the Chefoo School of Deaf and influenced by
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 ...
(ASL)).
Northern CSL has the greater influence from Chinese, with for example
character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
puns
A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophonic ...
.
Hong Kong Sign Language
Hong Kong Sign Language (香港手語), or HKSL, is the deaf sign language of Hong Kong and Macau. It derived from the southern dialect of Chinese Sign Language, but is now an independent, mutually unintelligible language.
Origins
The origin o ...
derives from the southern dialect, but by now is a separate language.
The Shanghai dialect is found in Malaysia and Taiwan, but Chinese Sign Language is unrelated to
Taiwanese Sign Language
Taiwan Sign Language (TSL; ) is the sign language most commonly used by the deaf and hard of hearing in Taiwan.
History
The beginnings of Taiwan Sign Language date from 1895.Fischer, Susan ''et al.'' (2010). "Variation in East Asian Sign Langua ...
(which is part of the
Japanese family
The family is called in Japanese. It's basically composed of a couple as is the family in other societies. The Japanese family is based on the line of descent and adoption. Ancestors and offspring are linked together by an idea of family geneal ...
),
Malaysian Sign Language
Malaysian Sign Language ( ms, Bahasa Isyarat Malaysia, or BIM) is the principal language of the deaf community of Malaysia. It is also the official sign language used by the Malaysian government to communicate with the deaf community and was offi ...
(of the
French family), or to
Tibetan Sign Language
Tibetan Sign Language is the recently established deaf sign language of Tibet.
Tibetan Sign is the first recognized sign language for a minority in China. The Tibetan Sign Language Project, staffed by members of the local deaf club, was set up ...
(isolate).
CSL shares
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
for forming negative clauses 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 ...
; it may be that this is due to historical contact with the British in Shanghai.
[ A feature of both CSL and British Sign Language is the use in many related signs of the thumb for a positive meaning and of the pinkie for a negative meaning, such as .
]
Structure
Like most other sign languages, Chinese Sign Language is mostly conveyed through shapes and motions joined with facial expressions. CSL has at its disposal an alphabetic spelling system similar to pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
.
The Chinese culture and language heavily influence signs in CSL. For example, there is no generic word for brother in CSL, only two distinct signs, one for "older brother" and one for "younger brother". This parallels Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
, which also specifies "older brother" or "younger brother" rather than simply "brother". Similarly, the sign for "eat" incorporates a pictorial representation for chopsticks instead of using the hand as in ASL.
References
Sources
CSL: Chinese Sign Language
* ttp://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/chinesesignlanguage.htm Chinese Sign Language: by Elizabeth T. Yeh, 10/28/04
{{language families
Languages of China
Articles with citation needed in ref field
Sign languages of China