Auslan () is the majority

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 markers. Sign ...

of the Australian Deaf community. The term ''Auslan'' is a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsTrevor Johnston in the 1980s, although the

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

itself is much older. Auslan is related to

British Sign Language British Sign Language (BSL) is a sign language used in the United Kingdom (UK), and is the first or preferred language among the Deaf community in the UK. Based on the percentage of people who reported 'using British Sign Language at home' o ...

(BSL) and

New Zealand Sign Language New Zealand Sign Language or NZSL ( mi, te reo Turi) is the main language of the deaf community in New Zealand. It became an official language of New Zealand in April 2006 under the New Zealand Sign Language Act 2006. The purpose of the act was ...

(NZSL); the three have descended from the same parent language, and together comprise the BANZSL language family. Auslan has also been influenced by

Irish Sign Language Irish Sign Language (ISL, ga, Teanga Chomharthaíochta na hÉireann) is the sign language of Ireland, used primarily in the Republic of Ireland. It is also used in Northern Ireland, alongside British Sign Language (BSL). Irish Sign Language is ...

(ISL) and more recently has borrowed signs from

American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is expre ...

(ASL). As with other sign languages, Auslan's

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes doma ...

and

vocabulary A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the ...

is quite different from

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

. Its origin cannot be attributed to any individual; rather, it is a

natural language In neuropsychology, linguistics, and philosophy of language, a natural language or ordinary language is any language that has evolved naturally in humans through use and repetition without conscious planning or premeditation. Natural languages ...

that emerged spontaneously and has changed over time.

Recognition and status

Auslan was recognised by the

Australian government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Governmen ...

as a "community language other than English" and the preferred language of the Deaf community in policy statements in 1987 and 1991. However, this recognition has yet to filter through to many institutions, government departments, and professionals who work with Deaf people. The emerging status of Auslan has gone hand-in-hand with the advancement of the Deaf community in Australia, beginning in the early 1980s. In 1982, the registration of the first sign language

interpreters Interpreting is a translational activity in which one produces a first and final target-language output on the basis of a one-time exposure to an expression in a source language. The most common two modes of interpreting are simultaneous interp ...

by NAATI, a newly established regulatory body for interpreting and translating, accorded a sense of legitimacy to Auslan, furthered by the publishing of the first

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologie ...

of Auslan in 1989 (Johnston, 1989). Auslan began to emerge as a language of instruction for Deaf students in primary and secondary schools from the late 1980s — mainly through the provision of Auslan/English interpreters in mainstream (hearing) schools with deaf support units, but also in some specialised bilingual programmes for deaf children. Boosted by the 1992 enactment of the federal Disability Discrimination Act, Auslan/English interpreters are also increasingly provided in tertiary education. Today there is a growing number of courses teaching Auslan as a

second language A person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native language ( first language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later. A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a ...

, from an elective language subject offered by some secondary schools to a two-year full-time diploma at

TAFE Technical and further education or simply TAFE (), is the common name in English-speaking countries in Oceania for vocational education, as a subset of tertiary education. TAFE institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational cours ...

. Though becoming more and more visible, Auslan is still rarely seen at public events or on television; there are, for example, no interpreted news services. There is a regular program on community television station Channel 31 in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...

, "Deaf TV", which is entirely in Auslan and is produced by Deaf volunteers.

Prominent advocates for Auslan

In 2006 David Gibson was the first member of any Parliament in Australia to give a maiden speech in Auslan and was involved in Auslan events for the National Week of Deaf People at the Queensland Parliament, including the use of Auslan interpreters for question time and a debate between members of the deaf community and members of parliament on disability issues in 2007. The Young Australian of the Year for 2015, Drisana Levitzke-Gray, is a strong proponent of Auslan and, in her acceptance speech using Auslan, called on the

Government of Australia The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Governmen ...

, and Australians, to learn and use Auslan as a

, as a

human right Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hum ...

for Australians.

History

Auslan evolved from sign language varieties brought to Australia during the nineteenth century from Britain and Ireland. The earliest record of a deaf Australian was convict

Elizabeth Steel Elizabeth Steel ( – 1795), also known as Betty Steel, was an English convict sent to Australia aboard a ship of the Second Fleet. Convicted in 1787 for the theft of a silver watch worth thirty shillings, she was sentenced to seven years pena ...

, who arrived in 1790 on the Second Fleet ship "Lady Juliana". There is as yet no historical evidence, however, that she used a sign language. One of the first known signing Deaf immigrants was the engraver John Carmichael who arrived in Sydney in 1825 from

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. He had been to a Deaf school there, and was known as a good storyteller in sign language. Thirty-five years later, in 1860, a school for the Deaf was established by another Deaf Scotsman, Thomas Pattison — the

Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a cit ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. In Victoria just a few weeks later, the

Victorian College for the Deaf The Victorian College for the Deaf (VCD), located on St Kilda Road in Melbourne, Australia, is Victoria's oldest deaf school, opening in 1860. The Victorian College for the Deaf is Australia's only Prep to Year 12 Specialist in Deaf Education ...

was founded by a Deaf Englishman, Frederick J Rose, who had been educated at the Old Kent Road School in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. These schools and others had an enormous role in the development of Auslan, as they were the first contact with sign language for many Deaf children. Because they were residential

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of " room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exte ...

s, they provided ample opportunity for the language to thrive, even though in many schools, signing was banned from the classroom for much of the 20th century.

(ISL) also had an influence on the development of Auslan, as it was used in Catholic schools until the 1950s. The first Catholic school for Deaf children was established in 1875 by Irish nuns. Unlike

, ISL uses a one-handed alphabet originating in

French Sign Language French Sign Language (french: langue des signes française, LSF) is the sign language of the deaf in France and French-speaking parts of Switzerland. According to ''Ethnologue'', it has 100,000 native signers. French Sign Language is relate ...

(LSF), and although this alphabet has now almost disappeared from Australia, some initialised signs from the Irish alphabet are still used in Auslan. In more recent times, Auslan has seen a significant amount of lexical borrowing from

(ASL), especially in signs for technical terms. Some of these arose from the

Signed English Manually-Coded English (MCE) is a type of sign system that follows direct spoken English. The different codes of MCE vary in the levels of directness in following spoken English grammar. There may also be a combination with other visual clues, su ...

educational philosophies of the 1970s and 80s, when a committee looking for signs with direct equivalence to English words found them in ASL and/or in invented English-based signed systems used in North America and introduced them in the classroom. ASL contains many signs initialised from an alphabet which was also derived from LSF, and Auslan users, already familiar with the related ISL alphabet, accepted many of the new signs easily.

Grammar

Word Order

Previously, Auslan had been said to be an OSV, but more recent scholars have said that this idea is a false-equivalent of Auslan with spoken languages and that using anchor signs is not the same as word order. In general, word order in Auslan takes into account context and fluidity between signs being used, being less rigid than many spoken languages. Rather, Auslan instead follows the clause/word order off TTC - Time, topic, comment. The frequency of SVO in Auslan may come from

code-switching In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Code-switching is different from plurilingualis ...

with English (with very high bilingualism for Auslan users), as it is more common with "loan words (signs), English-based idiomatic phrases ndfingerspelling" as well as by those who learned Auslan later in life. In question phrases, the question word must always be at the end in Auslan in open questions. This word order is the same for both questions and statements, with questions in Auslan formed by either adding a question word at the end of a clause TOM KICKED PETER WHY or using nonmanual features of a questioning expression.

Verbs

Verbs in Auslan which are ''depicting signs'' use head-marking to show the semantic role of the arguments, rather than subject/object. An example of this is the word ''give'', which involves an actor and a recipient. Both of these arguments can both be expressed on the verb by using signing space. Verb-predicates can be formed by using individual vocabulary words in sequential order (more commonly used by anglophones who speak Auslan as a second language) or using depicting signs, which can "blur" word order, as it allows for multiple signs to be used at once. This is generally a mark of high competence and fluency in the language. Lexicalisation of common predicates is common, and compounding is the most common way that new lexical items are produced. Auslan is a zero-copula language, which means that the verb ''to be'' is not used at all except when quoting English (in which it is finger-spelt). Auslan replaces copula with

interrogatives An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as ''what, which'', ''when'', ''where'', ''who, whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most of ...

for certain phrase types, sometimes in this context called "rhetorical questions" or "modifiers", using non-manual features to express that it is a statement rather than a question. The interrogatives of Auslan are more or less direct translations to English ones, with WHY used for this purpose sometimes translated as BECAUSE. Examples of use are as follows: * Phoebe is an engineer : PHOEBE WHAT ENGINEER * She is at school : SHE WHERE SCHOOL * I went shopping with my sister : (BEFORE) I SHOP WITH WHO MY SISTER

Pronouns

Pronouns are established using the signing space, either arbitrary (for non-present people/things) or iconic. For example, "I will give you the doll tomorrow" would be signed as TOMORROW DOLL GIVE, with the sign GIVE starting at the speakers body and finishing at the receivers. The use of signing space also makes all pronouns non-gendered.

Auslan in relation to English

It is sometimes wrongly assumed that

English-speaking countries The following is a list of English-speaking population by country, including information on both native speakers and second-language speakers. List * The European Union is a supranational union composed of 27 member states. The total E ...

share a single sign language. Auslan is a

distinct from spoken or written

. Its grammar and vocabulary often do not have direct English equivalents and vice versa. However, English, as the dominant language in Australia, has had a significant influence on Auslan, especially through manual forms such as fingerspelling and (more recently) Signed English. It is difficult to sign Auslan fluently while speaking English, as the word order may be different, and there is often no direct sign-to-word equivalence. However, mouthing of an English word together with a sign may serve to clarify when one sign may have several English equivalents. In some cases, the mouth gesture that accompanies a sign may not reflect the equivalent translation in English (e.g. a sign meaning "thick" may be accompanied by a mouth gesture that does not resemble any English word).

Fingerspelling

A two-handed manual alphabet, identical to the one used in British Sign Language and New Zealand Sign Language, is integral to Auslan. This alphabet is used for fingerspelling proper nouns such as personal or place names, common nouns for everyday objects, and English words, especially technical terms, for which there is no widely used sign. Fingerspelling can also be used for emphasis, clarification, or, sometimes extensively, by English-speaking learners of Auslan. The proportion of fingerspelling versus signs varies with the context and the age of the signer. A recent small-scale study puts fingerspelled words in Auslan conversations at about 10% of all lexical items, roughly equal to ASL and higher than many other sign languages, such as New Zealand Sign Language. The proportion is higher in older signers, suggesting that the use of fingerspelling has diminished over time. Schembri and Johnston (2007) found that the most commonly fingerspelled words in Auslan include "so", "to", "if", "but" and "do". Some signs also feature an English word's initial letter as a handshape from a one- or two-handed manual alphabet and use it within a sign. For example, part of the sign for "Canberra" incorporates the letter "C".

Signed English

:''See main article

'' Australasian Signed English was created in the late 1970s to represent English words and grammar, using mostly Auslan signs together with some additional contrived signs, as well as borrowings from American Sign Language (ASL). It was used largely in education for teaching English to Deaf children or for ''discussing'' English in academic contexts, and it is not clear to what extent this continues to be the case. It was thought to be much easier for hearing teachers and parents to learn another mode of English than to learn a new language with a complex spatial grammar such as Auslan. The use of Signed English in schools is controversial with some in the Deaf community, who regard Signed English as a contrived and unnatural artificially

constructed language A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...

. Signed English has now been largely rejected by Deaf communities in Australia and its use in education is dwindling; however, a number of its signs have made their way into normal use.

Acquisition and nativeness

Unlike oral languages, only a minority of Deaf children acquire their language from their parents (about 4 or 5% have Deaf parents). Most acquire Auslan from Deaf peers at school or later through Deaf community networks. Many learn Auslan as a "delayed"

first language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother to ...

in adolescence or adulthood, after attempting to learn English (or another spoken/written language) without the exposure necessary to properly acquire it. The Deaf community often distinguish between "oral deaf" who grew up in an

oral The word oral may refer to: Relating to the mouth * Relating to the mouth, the first portion of the alimentary canal that primarily receives food and liquid ** Oral administration of medicines ** Oral examination (also known as an oral exam or or ...

signed English Manually-Coded English (MCE) is a type of sign system that follows direct spoken English. The different codes of MCE vary in the levels of directness in following spoken English grammar. There may also be a combination with other visual clues, su ...

educational environment without Auslan, and those "''Deaf'' Deaf" who learnt Auslan at an early age from Deaf parents or at a Deaf school. Regardless of their background, many Deaf adults consider Auslan to be their first or

primary language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tong ...

, and see themselves as users of

English as a second language English as a second or foreign language is the use of English by speakers with different native languages. Language education for people learning English may be known as English as a second language (ESL), English as a foreign language (EFL ...

Variation and standardisation

Auslan exhibits a high degree of variation, determined by the signer's age, educational background, and regional origin, and the signing community is very accepting of a wide range of individual differences in signing style. There is no standard dialect of Auslan. Standard dialects arise through the support of institutions, such as the media, education, government and the law. As this support has not existed for most sign languages, coupled with the lack of a widely used written form and communications technologies, Auslan has probably diverged much more rapidly from BSL than

Australian English Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language; while Australia has no official language, Eng ...

has from British English. Auslan was introduced to Papua New Guinea, where it mixed with local or home sign and

Tok Pisin Tok Pisin (,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh ; Tok Pisin ), often referred to by English speakers as "New Guinea Pidgin" or simply Pidgin, is a creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an ...

to produce Papua New Guinean Sign Language. Sign languages related to Auslan also appear to be used in some other parts of the Asia-Pacific, such as in Fiji.

Dialects

Linguists often regard Auslan as having two major dialects - Northern (

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

and

), and Southern ( Victoria,

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest o ...

, and

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to t ...

). The vocabulary of the two dialects traditionally differed significantly, with different signs used even for very common concepts such as colours, animals, and days of the week; differences in grammar appear to be slight. These two dialects may have roots in older dialectal differences from the United Kingdom, brought over by Deaf immigrants who founded the first schools for the Deaf in Australia — varieties from the southeast of England in

and Scottish varieties in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

, although the relationship between lexical variation in the UK and Australia appears much more complicated than this (some Auslan signs appear similar to signs used in a range of regional varieties of BSL). Before schools were established elsewhere, Deaf children attended one of these two initial schools, and brought signs back to their own states. As schools opened up in each state, new signs also developed in the dormitories and playgrounds of these institutions. As a result, Auslan users can identify more precise regional varieties (e.g., "Sydney sign", "Melbourne sign", "Perth sign", "Adelaide sign" and "Brisbane sign"), and even vocabulary that may have been unique to individual schools. In a conversation between two strangers, one from Melbourne and the other from Perth, it is likely that one will use a small number of signs unfamiliar to the other, despite both belonging to the same "southern dialect". Signers can often identify which school someone went to, even within a few short utterances. Despite these differences, communication between Auslan users from different regions poses little difficulty for most Deaf Australians, who often become aware of different regional vocabulary as they grow older, through travel and Deaf community networks, and because Deaf people are so well practised in bridging barriers to communication.

Indigenous Australian sign languages and Auslan

A number of

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

sign languages exist, unrelated to Auslan, such as

Warlpiri Sign Language Warlpiri Sign Language, also known as Rdaka-rdaka (''hand signs''), is a sign language used by the Warlpiri, an Aboriginal community in the central desert region of Australia. It is one of the most elaborate, and certainly the most studied, of ...

and Yolngu Sign Language. They occur in the southern, central, and western desert regions, coastal

Arnhem Land Arnhem Land is a historical region of the Northern Territory of Australia, with the term still in use. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around from the territory capital, Darwin. In 1623, Dutch East India Compa ...

, some islands of the north coast, the western side of

Cape York Peninsula Cape York Peninsula is a large peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest unspoiled wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth’s last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación ...

, and on some

Torres Strait Islands The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait, a waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea. They span an area of , but their total la ...

. They have also been noted as far south as the

Murray River The Murray River (in South Australia: River Murray) (Ngarrindjeri: ''Millewa'', Yorta Yorta: ''Tongala'') is a river in Southeastern Australia. It is Australia's longest river at extent. Its tributaries include five of the next six longest ...

. Deaf Indigenous people of

Far North Queensland Far North Queensland (FNQ) is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. Its largest city is Cairns and it is dominated geographically by Cape York Peninsula, which stretches north to the Torres Strait, and west to the Gulf Co ...

(extending from Yarrabah to Cape York) form a distinct signing community using a

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...

of Auslan; it has features of indigenous sign languages and gestural systems as well as signs and grammar of Auslan.

Written and recorded Auslan

Auslan has no widely used written form; in the past transcribing Auslan was largely an academic exercise. The first Auslan dictionaries used either photographs or drawings with motion arrows to describe signs; more recently, technology has made possible the use of short video clips on

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both com ...

or online dictionaries. SignWriting, however, has its adherents in Australia. ''

A Silent Agreement ''A Silent Agreement'' is a 2017 Australian romantic drama film written and directed by Davo Hardy. It was the first theatrically released, cinematic film to feature Auslan (Australian Sign Language) as both a main language of the film's dialogue ...

'' was Australia's first theatrically released

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

to showcase Australian Sign Language in its main

dialogue Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American and British English spelling differences, American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literature, literary and theatrical form that depicts suc ...

and as a plot element, with some scenes depicted entirely in Auslan. There is also one scene where the characters discuss the risky

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

of using non-deaf actors using

in film.

References

Other references

External links

www.auslan.org.au
- An online dictionary of Auslan video clips
ASLIA
- Australian Sign Language Interpreters Association
Auslan online dictionaries

The Endangered Languages Archive of Auslan recordings
{{Authority control BANZSL Sign Language family Sign languages of Australia