Chinese Sign Language ( abbreviated CSL or ZGS; ) is the official

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 l ...

of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. It is unrelated to Taiwanese Sign Language and is known in the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

as ''Wénfǎ Shǒuyǔ'' ().

History

The first Deaf school in China, Chefoo (''Zhifu'' 芝罘, alternative name of

Yantai Yantai, Postal Map Romanization, formerly romanization of Chinese, known as Chefoo, is a coastal prefecture-level city on the Shandong Peninsula in northeastern Shandong province of People's Republic of China. Lying on the southern coast of ...

) School for the Deaf, was established in 1887 by the

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

Annetta Thompson Mills Annetta Thompson Mills (1853–1929) was a Presbyterian missionary and educator of the Deaf in China. She founded the first known formal school for the Deaf in China in 1887, the Chefoo School for the Deaf, which eventually became the Yantai Deaf ...

. From the School, a sign language based on an oralist approach to deaf education was developed, coming out of the

Milan Conference The Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf was an international conference of deaf educators held in Milan, Italy in 1880. It is commonly known as "the Milan Conference or Milan Congress". The first meeting was held in Paris in 187 ...

of 1880. Another school for the deaf was established in Shanghai in 1897 by a French Catholic organization. Chinese Sign Language was grown out of these two bases. Schools, workshops and farms for the Deaf in diverse locations are the main ways that CSL has been able to spread in China so well. Other deaf people who are not connected to these gathering places tend to use sets of gestures developed in their own homes, known as

home sign Home sign (or kitchen sign) is a gestural communication system, often invented spontaneously by a deaf child who lacks accessible linguistic input. Home sign systems often arise in families where a deaf child is raised by hearing parents and is iso ...

. The Chinese National Association of the Deaf was created by deaf people mostly from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in 1992. The main reason for the creation of the organization was to raise the quality of living for the deaf, which was behind the quality of living standards provided for other disabled persons. Their main goals are to improve the welfare of the deaf, encourage

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...

about the Deaf and Chinese Sign Language, and promote the needs of the Deaf community in China.

Classification

There are two main dialects of Chinese Sign Language: Southern CSL (centered on Shanghai and influenced by French Sign Language) and Northern CSL (coming out of the Chefoo School of Deaf and influenced by

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 Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual lang ...

(ASL)). Northern CSL has the greater influence from Chinese, with for example

character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

puns A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophonic ...

. Hong Kong Sign Language derives from the southern dialect, but by now is a separate language. The Shanghai dialect is found in Malaysia and Taiwan, but Chinese Sign Language is unrelated to Taiwanese Sign Language (which is part of the Japanese family), Malaysian Sign Language (of the French family), or to Tibetan Sign Language (isolate). CSL shares

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

for forming negative clauses with

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' on ...

; it may be that this is due to historical contact with the British in Shanghai. A feature of both CSL and British Sign Language is the use in many related signs of the thumb for a positive meaning and of the pinkie for a negative meaning, such as .

Structure

Like most other sign languages, Chinese Sign Language is mostly conveyed through shapes and motions joined with facial expressions. CSL has at its disposal an alphabetic spelling system similar to

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

. The Chinese culture and language heavily influence signs in CSL. For example, there is no generic word for brother in CSL, only two distinct signs, one for "older brother" and one for "younger brother". This parallels

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

, which also specifies "older brother" or "younger brother" rather than simply "brother". Similarly, the sign for "eat" incorporates a pictorial representation for chopsticks instead of using the hand as in ASL.

References

Sources

CSL: Chinese Sign Language

* ttp://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/chinesesignlanguage.htm Chinese Sign Language: by Elizabeth T. Yeh, 10/28/04 {{language families Languages of China Articles with citation needed in ref field Sign languages of China