Sign language is the main form of communication for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing community, but it can also be useful for other groups of people. Like spoken languages, sign languages developed naturally through different groups of people interacting with each other, resulting in many varieties.
There is no single sign language used around the world. Interestingly, most countries that share the same spoken language do not necessarily have the same sign language as each other. Let's take a trip around the world to explore sign languages, their stories, and their finger alphabets.
The use of the hands to represent individual letters of a written alphabet is called ‘fingerspelling’. Of course, not every language uses the Latin alphabet like English, so their sign language alphabet will also differ. Some manual alphabets are one-handed, such as in ASL and French Sign Language, and others use two-hands, like BSL or Auslan.
Different alphabets use different signs to indicate letters. Some use two-handed signs and others use one-handed signs.
South African Sign Language (SASL)
South African Sign Language (SASL, Afrikaans: Suid-Afrikaanse Gebaretaal) is the primary sign language used by deaf people in South Africa. It is commonly believed among South Africans, even among Deaf South Africans, that different language communities have different sign languages. However, this is because such "interpreters" do not actually use sign language, but rather Signed English, Signed Xhosa, etc., and only those who have been schooled in these artificial codes can understand them.
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Until 2023, neither South African Sign Language nor any other sign language was an official language of South Africa. In South Africa, newscasts on television employ the sign language known as SASL. South African Sign Language is not entirely uniform and continues to evolve.
Due to the geographical spread of its users and past educational policies, there are localised dialects of South African Sign Language and signs with many variants. Earlier efforts to create reference material and standardise the language, such as books can only be used as historical records of the language.
In 1995, the previous South African National Council for the Deaf (SANCD) was transformed into the Deaf Federation of South Africa (DeafSA), which resulted in a radical policy change in matters for Deaf people in South Africa, such as the development and adoption of a single sign language and the promotion of sign language over oralism. Schools for the deaf have remained largely untransformed, however, and different schools for Deaf children in South African still use different sign language systems.
In addition to South African sign languages, American Sign Language (ASL) is also used by some Deaf people in South Africa.
The number of deaf people in South Africa (600,000 deaf and 1.4 million people with hearing loss) does not give an accurate depiction of the number of people who communicate in South African Sign Language. There is currently no estimate for the number of people who communicate in South African Sign Language in South Africa.
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From 1877, Dominican sisters started to settle near Durban. "Since there is little historical evidence, it is presumed that South African Sign Language has a mixture of the Irish influence from the Dominican Irish nuns, and British influence as well as the American influence.
Fingerspelling in SASL
Fingerspelling is a manual technique of signing used to spell letters and numbers (numerals, cardinals). Therefore, fingerspelling is a sign language technique for borrowing words from spoken languages, as well as for spelling names of people, places and objects.
Some words which are often fingerspelled tend to become signs in their own right (becoming "frozen"), following linguistic transformation processes such as alphanumeric incorporation and abbreviation. For instance, one of the sign-names for Cape Town uses incorporated fingerspelled letters C.T. Fingerspelling words is not a substitute for using existing signs: it takes longer to sign and it is harder to perceive.
If the fingerspelled word is a borrowing, fingerspelling depends on both users having knowledge of the oral language (English, Sotho, Afrikaans etc.). Sign names are specific signs which are associated with proper names (a location, a person, an organisation). Sign names are often chosen based on a salient physical property.
Black American Sign Language (BASL)
Black American Sign Language (BASL) or Black Sign Variation (BSV) is a dialect of American Sign Language (ASL) used most commonly by deaf Black Americans in the United States. The divergence from ASL was influenced largely by the segregation of schools in the American South.
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Like other schools at the time, schools for the deaf were segregated based upon race, creating two language communities among deaf signers: Black deaf signers at Black schools and White deaf signers at White schools.
Linguistically, BASL differs from other varieties of ASL in its phonology, syntax, and vocabulary. BASL tends to have a larger signing space, meaning that some signs are produced further away from the body than in other dialects. Signers of BASL also tend to prefer two-handed variants of signs, while signers of ASL tend to prefer one-handed variants.
Like many educational institutions for hearing children during 19th and early 20th century, schools for deaf children were segregated based on race. Of the schools for the Deaf that were founded, few admitted students of color.
After the foundation and success of the American School for the Deaf, many other institutions for the deaf were founded throughout the country. Since schools, particularly in the South, were segregated, many Southern states created separate schools or departments for Black Deaf children. Black deaf children became a language community isolated from white Deaf children, with different means of language socialization, allowing for different dialects to develop.
Carl G. Croneberg was the first to discuss differences between BASL and White ASL in his appendices of the 1965 version of the Dictionary of American Sign Language. As Deaf education and sign language research continued to evolve, so did the perception of ASL. With the publication of the Dictionary of American Sign Language, ASL began to be recognized as a legitimate language.
A study of Southern Black signers found out when compared to older signers who attended segregated schools, younger Black ASL signers express more positive attitudes toward the dialect. Black signs are typically more like the "standard" signs taught in schools and textbooks.
Among these accounts, there were claims that Black signers had a larger signing space and used more two-handed signs. When compared, Black signers were more likely than White signers to produce signs outside of the typical signing space and to use two-handed signs. Adverbs are most likely to use a larger signing space. The selection of two-handed signs over one-handed signs was found to have systematic constraints on their production.
BASL signers further tend to favor lowered variants of side-of-forehead signs resulting in contact at the cheek. Unlike ASL, BASL allows for the frequent use of syntactic repetition. In a study conducted by McCaskill, of 26 signers (13 Black and 13 White), Black signers had 57 instances of repetition compared to 19 from White signers, and of those 19 instances, 18 were made by a single signer.
Lexical variation between BASL and other dialects of ASL was first noted in the Dictionary of American Sign Language. In a later study of 34 lexical signs, black signers were found to have 28 signs that White signers did not know. Older signers are more likely to use variant signs than younger signers. Most of these signs, having been developed in segregated schools for the Black Deaf, refer to everyday life.
A body of work has arisen looking at the similarities between Black American Sign Language and African-American English (AAVE), since both are language varieties marked by their use in African-American communities.
What is Black American Sign Language?
Key Differences Between BASL and ASL:
| Feature | BASL | ASL |
|---|---|---|
| Signing Space | Larger | Typical |
| Handedness | Prefers two-handed variants | Prefers one-handed variants |
| Syntactic Repetition | Frequent use | Less frequent use |
Tips for Fingerspelling:
- Pause between spelling individual words.
- Keep your hand in one place while spelling each word.
- Keep your fingerspelling hand at the height of your shoulder.
- Keep your pace consistent.
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