Bulgarian Sign Language (in
Bulgarian: "български жестомимичен език (БЖЕ)") is the language, or perhaps languages, of the
deaf
Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...
community in
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
.
Primary schools were established for the deaf.
Russian Sign Language
Russian Sign Language (RSL) is the sign language used by the Deaf community in Russia and possibly Ukraine, Belarus and Tajikistan. It belongs to the French Sign Language family.
RSL is a natural language with a grammar that differs from spok ...
was introduced in 1910, and allowed in the classroom in 1945, and Wittmann (1991) classifies it as a descendant of Russian Sign. However, Bickford (2005) found that Bulgarian Sign formed a cluster with Slovak, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, and Polish Sign.
[Bickford, 2005]
''The Signed Languages of Eastern Europe''
/ref> The language of the classroom is different from that used by adults outside,[ and it is not clear if Wittmann and Bickford looked at the same language; nor, if one is derived from Russian Sign, if it is a dialect or if it creolized to form a new language.
]
References
Languages of Bulgaria
French Sign Language family
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