The German Sign Language family is a
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ...
of
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 elements, no ...
s, including
German Sign Language
German Sign Language (, DGS) is the sign language of the deaf community in Germany, Luxembourg and in the German-speaking community of Belgium. It is unclear how many use German Sign Language as their main language; Gallaudet University estimate ...
,
Polish Sign Language
Polish Sign Language (, ) is the language of the deaf community in Poland. Polish Sign Language uses a distinctive one-handed manual alphabet based on the alphabet used in Old French Sign Language and therefore appears to be related to French S ...
and probably
Israeli Sign Language.
Anderson (1979) suggested that
Swedish Sign,
German Sign and
British Sign share one origin in a "North-West European" sign language.
See also
*
Swiss German Sign Language
References
{{sign language navigation