What official statistics are you referring to?
(This figure does not include professional BSL users, Interpreters, Translators, etc unless they use BSL at home)
For instance, due to historical and political links, Australian Sign Language and modern BSL share a common ancestor, and there are similarities between the two. As with spoken languages, a sign language can evolve from a parent sign language and therefore show affinities. Thus, although in Great Britain, Ireland and the United States the main spoken language is English, all three have entirely separate sign languages. There are not derived from the spoken language of a country. Sign languages evolve wherever there are Deaf people, and they show all the variation you would expect from different spoken languages. References to Sign Language are also found in the Bible and in Greek and Roman writings.Ĭontrary to popular belief, Sign Language is not international. Earlier still, in the Parish book of St Martins’, Leicester, an account can be found of a wedding conducted partly in Sign Language on 5 February 1576. Before that, in 1595 Richard Carew first recorded an observation of Sign Language in use between two Deaf people, Edward Bone and John Kempe, in his Survey of Cornwall. The first printed account in the UK of its usage was recorded in John Bulwer’s “Chirologia – The National Language of the Hand” in 1644. In his book, "Britain’s Deaf Heritage", Peter Jackson speculates that the presence of sign languages among Australian aborigines, Kalahari Bush People and North American Plains Indians suggests that the use of sign language goes back to prehistoric times.īSL has been in use for hundreds of years. The earliest recorded instance of gestural communication among Deaf people occurs in the Talmud. BSL is a visual-gestural language with a distinctive grammar using handshapes, facial expressions, gestures and body language to convey meaning. Sign languages are fully functional and expressive languages at the same time they differ profoundly from spoken languages.
In other places even pointing with an open hand is not polite, and people point with their lips. In some countries it is not polite to point a finger, so an open hand is used. In the USA a pointing finger is used to indicate different persons (me, you, her, them). (People with hearing loss already have a difficult time being accepted.) Here are some examples: Choose signs that will not offend the local people.You will want to change them to fit the gestures, customs, and language of your area. Most are signs used in American Sign Language. On the next few pages we give ideas for making up signs, and examples for common words. If this is not possible, you can use the local signs and gestures, and invent more signs of your own.
If possible, contact the Association of the Deaf in your country, and see if you can get a guidebook to sign language adapted to your local area or spoken language.