Finland-Swedish Sign Language (FinSSL) is a moribund

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 ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...

. It is now used only in private settings by older adults who attended the only Swedish school for the deaf in Finland (in

Porvoo Porvoo (; sv, Borgå ; la, Borgoa) is a city and a municipality in the Uusimaa region of Finland, situated on the southern coast about east of the city border of Helsinki and about from the city centre. Porvoo was one of the six medieva ...

, ), which was established in the mid-19th century by

Carl Oscar Malm Carl Oscar Malm, also known as C. O. Malm and Carl Oskar Malm (12 February 1826 – 8 June 1863) was Finland's first teacher of the deaf, founder of the first school for the deaf in the country, and the father of Finnish Sign Language. Life ...

but closed in 1993. Some 90 persons have it as their native language. FinSSL is said to be a distinct language; however, "Finland-Swedish Deaf have few problems understanding Finnish signers". There had been, moreover, continuous input from Swedish Sign Language over its history.

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