Norwegian Sign Language, or NSL (
Norwegian or , ''NTS''), is the principal
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 ...
in
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...
. There are many sign language organizations and some
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
programs broadcast in NSL in Norway. The
Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation
NRK, an abbreviation of the Norwegian ''Norsk Rikskringkasting AS'', generally expressed in English as the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, is the Norwegian government-owned radio and television public broadcasting company, and the larges ...
airs (News in Sign Language) daily and (Time for Signs) weekly.
NSL is an official language as of 1 January 2022.
Relation to Malagasy Sign Language
The language is sometimes reported to be similar, or even identical to
the sign language used in
Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Afric ...
. In fact, while Norwegian Sign Language may have influenced Malagasy sign language via the creation of schools for the deaf by Norwegian Lutheran missionaries, the languages are quite distinct. Out of a sample of 96 sign pairs, 18 pairs were identical between the two languages, 26 showed some level of similarity, and 52 appeared completely unrelated. It is not yet known to what degree the similarities are a result of direct borrowing, borrowing from a common source language (such as
ASL or
International Sign,
mimesis
Mimesis (; grc, μίμησις, ''mīmēsis'') is a term used in literary criticism and philosophy that carries a wide range of meanings, including '' imitatio'', imitation, nonsensuous similarity, receptivity, representation, mimicry, the a ...
of the thing they refer to, or sheer coincidence.
A Preliminary Study of Norwegian Sign Language and Malagasy Sign Language
/ref>
See also
* Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...
* Norwegian Association of the Deaf
* Deaf culture
* Deaf rights movement
The Deaf rights movement encompasses a series of social movements within the disability rights and cultural diversity movements that encourages deaf and hard of hearing to push society to adopt a position of equal respect for them. Acknowledgi ...
References
External links
NTS Dictionary
WikiSigns.org
– Malagasy Sign Language Dictionary
{{French Sign Language languages
French Sign Language family
Danish Sign Language family
Languages of Norway