The Slovak Sign Language (, SPJ) 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 elements, no ...

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

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

. It belongs to the French sign-language family. Bickford (2005) found that Slovak,

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

, and Hungarian Sign formed a cluster with Romanian, Bulgarian, and Polish Sign.Bickford, 2005
''The Signed Languages of Eastern Europe''
/ref> Despite the similarity of oral Slovak and Czech, SSL is not particularly close to

Czech Sign Language Czech Sign Language (, ČZJ) is the sign language of the deaf community in the Czech Republic. It presumably emerged around the time of the first deaf school in Bohemia (1786). It belongs to the French sign-language family and is partially intel ...

References

French Sign Language family Languages of Slovakia {{sign-lang-stub