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Sign Languages Around the World
One misconception that some people who are not familiar with the Deaf community have about sign language is that it is universal, or in other words, that there is only one signed language that is used by all Deaf signers all over the world. While the notion of a universally used language may sound intriguing, it is just as unlikely that all Deaf people would just happen to use the same sign language as it would be unlikely for all hearing people of all geographic regions and backgrounds to just happen to use the same spoken language. Just as hearing people develop and learn spoken and written languages local to their own region and culture, so too do Deaf people develop and learn sign languages that vary from one nation to another.
There are, in fact, many different sign languages around the world. Ethnologue, an encyclopedia that catalogues what it calls the world's 6909 living languages, lists 130 sign languages used by Deaf communities. Gallaudet University puts the figure at 271 sign languages worldwide. There are various Internet sites that list scores and hundreds of different sign languages.
One of the most widely used sign languages, American Sign Language, or ASL, is used in some 20 different countries in as places as diverse as Canada and the Philippines and is the third most used language in the United States after English and Spanish. Just a few of the other more well known sign languages from around the world include the following:
- Auslan: Australian Sign Language; Auslan is similar to BSL but is very different
from ASL
- BSL: British Sign Language
- Chinese Sign Language
- Irish Sign Language
- JSL: Japanese Sign Language; called Shuwa in the spoken Japanese language, shu meaning "hand" and wa meaning "language"
- LSF: Langues des Signes Francais (French Sign Language)
- Spanish Sign Language
The idea that all sign languages are the same language may have arisen from the creation of Gestuno. Just like Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof invented the language, Esperanto, in an attempt to create a universally spoken language, Gestuno is an invented sign language. A committee of the World Federation of the Deaf invented Gestuno in 1973 in an attempt to create a universal sign language. The name refers to the English word "gesture" and the Spanish word for "one". One could argue that one reason why such invented languages have historically failed to catch on is because there is no population that already uses these concocted forms of communication as their native language. Although Gestuno is only used at a few international gatherings, the myth that all sign language is universal has risen, even though there are many different sign languages around the world.
© 2012 F. C. Stamps
