There are perhaps three hundred

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 elements, no ...

s in use around the world today. The number is not known with any confidence; new sign languages emerge frequently through

creolization Creolization is the process through which creole languages and cultures emerge. Creolization was first used by linguists to explain how contact languages become creole languages, but now scholars in other social sciences use the term to describe ...

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; on the other hand, 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 Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia 50,000 to 65,000 year ...

peoples. Scholars are doing

field surveys Field may refer to: Expanses of open ground * Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes * Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport * Battlefield * Lawn, an area of mowed grass * Meadow, a grass ...

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 Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...

communities around the world; these include

village sign language A village sign language, or village sign, also known as a shared sign language, is a local indigenous sign language used by both deaf and hearing in an area with a high incidence of congenital deafness. Meir ''et al.'' define a village sign langu ...

s, 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

gesture A gesture is a form of nonverbal communication or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or othe ...

s are not included, as they do not constitute

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

. * 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 This article is a list of language families. This list only includes primary language families that are accepted by the current academic consensus in the field of linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of ling ...

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

Middle East

Historical deaf sign languages

* Henniker Sign Language *

Martha's Vineyard Sign Language Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL) was a village sign language, village sign-language that was once widely used on the island of Martha's Vineyard, United States, from the early 18th century to 1952. It was used by both deaf and Hearing (perso ...

Old French Sign Language Old French Sign Language (, often abbreviated as VLSF) was the language of the deaf community in 18th-century Paris at the time of the establishment of the first deaf schools. The earliest records of the language are in the work of the Abbé d ...

– 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 contact sign language, or contact sign, is a variety or style of language that arises from contact between deaf individuals using a sign language and hearing individuals using an oral language (or the written or manually coded form of the ora ...

– a

pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...

contact language Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact with and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum ...

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 International Sign (IS) is a pidgin sign language which is used in a variety of different contexts, particularly as an international auxiliary language at meetings such as the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) congress, in some European Union s ...

(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 Cued speech is a visual system of communication used with and among deaf or hard-of-hearing people. It is a phonemic-based system which makes traditionally spoken languages accessible by using a small number of handshapes, known as cues (represe ...

– a hand/mouth system (HMS) to render spoken language phonemes visually intelligible. **

Fingerspelling Fingerspelling (or dactylology) is the representation of the letter (alphabet), letters of a writing system, and sometimes numeral systems, using only the hands. These manual alphabets (also known as finger alphabets or hand alphabets) have often ...

– alphabetic signs to represent the written form of a spoken language. * English **

Manually Coded English Manually Coded English (MCE) is an umbrella term referring to a number of Constructed language, invented Manual communication, manual codes intended to visually represent the exact grammar and morphology of spoken English language, English. Differ ...

** Signing Exact English (SEE2) ** Makaton *Malay ** Bahasa Malaysia Kod Tangan (BMKT) *Speech-taboo languages ** Caucasian Sign Language **

Australian Aboriginal sign languages Many Australian Aboriginal cultures have or traditionally had a manually coded language, a sign language, signed counterpart of their oral language. This appears to be connected with various avoidance speech, speech taboos between certain kin o ...

(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 British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

, Swedish (perhaps a branch of BSL), French (with branches ASL (American), Austro-Hungarian, Danish, Italian),

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

, Japanese, and

language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...

References

External links

''Ethnologue'' – Deaf sign languagesMultiple accessible sign languages dictionariesSignes du Monde
directory for all online Sign Languages dictionaries {{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Sign Languages *

Sign A sign is an object, quality, event, or entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. A natural sign bears a causal relation to its object—for instance, thunder is a sign of storm, or me ...

Deaf education