science

List of sign languages

List of sign languages is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand List of sign languages rather than just read about it. In short: There are an estimated three hundred sign languages in use around the world today. The number is not known with any confidence; new sign languages emerge frequently through creolization and de novo (and occasionally through language planning).

Key takeaways

List of sign languages belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect List of sign languages to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of List of sign languages from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

There are an estimated three hundred sign languages in use around the world today. The number is not known with any confidence; new sign languages emerge frequently through creolization and de novo (and occasionally through language planning). In some countries, such as Sri Lanka and Tanzania, each school for the deaf may have a separate language, known only to its students and sometimes denied by the school. Some countries may share sign languages, although sometimes under different names (Croatian and Serbian, Indian and Pakistani). Deaf sign languages also arise outside educational institutions, especially in village communities with high levels of congenital deafness, but there are significant sign languages developed for the hearing as well, such as the speech-taboo languages used by some Aboriginal Australian peoples. Scholars are doing field surveys to identify the world's sign languages. The following list is grouped into three sections :

Deaf sign languages, which are the preferred languages of Deaf communities around the world; these include village sign languages, shared with the hearing community, and Deaf-community sign languages Auxiliary sign languages, which are not native languages but sign systems of varying complexity, used alongside spoken languages. Simple gestures are not included, as they do not constitute language. Signed modes of spoken languages, also known as manually coded languages, which are bridges between signed and spoken languages The list of deaf sign languages is sorted regionally and alphabetically, and such groupings should not be taken to imply any genetic relationships between these languages (see List of language families).

Sign language list

Contemporary deaf sign languages

Africa There are at least 25 sign languages in Africa, according to researcher Nobutaka Kamei. Some have distributions that are completely independent of those of African spoken languages. At least 13 foreign sign languages, mainly from Europe and America, have been introduced to at least 27 African nations; some of the 23 sign languages documented by Kamei have originated with or been influenced by them.

Americas

Asia-Pacific

Europe

Near East

Historical deaf sign languages Henniker Sign Language Martha's Vineyard Sign Language Old French Sign Language – ancestral to the French family Old Kent Sign Language – used in Kent villages in the 17th century, later incorporated into the British Sign Language. Sandy River Valley Sign Language

Auxiliary sign languages Baby Sign – using signs to assist early language development in young children. Contact Sign – a pidgin or contact language between a spoken language and a sign language, e.g. Pidgin Sign English (PSE). Curwin Hand Signs – a technique which allows musical notes to be communicated through hand signs. International Sign (previously known as Gestuno) – an auxiliary language used by deaf people in international settings. Makaton – a system of signed communication used by and with people who have speech, language or learning difficulties. Mofu-Gudur Sign Language – conventional gestures used by speakers of Mofu-Gudur, a Chadic language spoken in northern Cameroon. Monastic sign language - sign languages used in Christian monasteries in Europe. Signalong – international sign assisted communication techniques used to support children and adults with communication or learning difficulties

Manual modes of spoken languages

Manual modes of spoken languages include:

General Cued Speech – a hand/mouth system (HMS) to render spoken language phonemes visually intelligible. Fingerspelling – alphabetic signs to represent the written form of a spoken language. English Manually Coded English Signing Exact English (SEE2) Makaton Malay Bahasa Malaysia Kod Tangan (BMKT) Speech-taboo languages Caucasian Sign Language Australian Aboriginal sign languages (though Yolŋu Sign Language does not correspond to any one language, and doubles as a language of the deaf)

Genetic classification of sign languages

Languages are assigned families (implying a genetic relationships between these languages) as British, Swedish (perhaps a branch of BSL), French (with branches ASL (American), Austro-Hungarian, Danish, Italian), German, Japanese, and language isolates.

See also Contact sign Intercultural competence Legal recognition of sign languages List of sign languages by number of native signers Manual alphabet Sign language World Federation of the Deaf

References

External links Ethnologue – Deaf sign languages Multiple accessible sign languages dictionaries Signes du Monde, directory for all online Sign Languages dictionaries (in French and English)

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with List of sign languages

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what List of sign languages claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to List of sign languages before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about List of sign languages ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of List of sign languages

In research: List of sign languages appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses List of sign languages in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: List of sign languages is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Deaf education, Lists of languages, Sign languages, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for List of sign languages outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study List of sign languages in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what List of sign languages means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain List of sign languages out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is List of sign languages in simple terms?

Why does List of sign languages matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study List of sign languages?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on List of sign languages.