BANZSL
Encyclopedia
BANZSL, or British, Australian and New Zealand Sign Language, is the language of which British Sign Language
British Sign Language
British Sign Language is the sign language used in the United Kingdom , and is the first or preferred language of some deaf people in the UK; there are 125,000 deaf adults in the UK who use BSL plus an estimated 20,000 children. The language makes use of space and involves movement of the hands,...

 (BSL), Auslan
Auslan
Auslan is the sign language of the Australian deaf community. The term Auslan is an acronym of "Australian sign language", coined by Trevor Johnston in the early 1980s, although the language itself is much older...

 and New Zealand Sign Language
New Zealand Sign Language
New Zealand Sign Language or NZSL is the main language of the Deaf community in New Zealand. It became an official language of New Zealand in April 2006, alongside Te Reo Māori....

 (NZSL) may be considered dialects. These three languages may technically be considered dialects of a single language (BANZSL) due to their use of the same grammar, manual alphabet
Two-handed manual alphabet
Several manual alphabets in use around the world employ two hands for some or all of the letters.- BANZSL alphabet :This alphabet is used in the BANZSL group of sign languages. It has been used in British Sign Language and Auslan since at least the 19th century, and in New Zealand Sign Language...

, and the high degree of lexical sharing (overlap of signs). The term BANZSL was coined by Trevor Johnston and Adam Schembri.

BSL, Auslan and NZSL all have their roots in a deaf sign language used in Britain during the 19th century.

American Sign Language
American Sign Language
American Sign Language, or ASL, for a time also called Ameslan, is the dominant sign language of Deaf Americans, including deaf communities in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...

 and BANZSL are ostensibly unrelated sign languages, and share far fewer signs. However there is still a significant overlap, probably due largely to relatively recent borrowing of lexicon by signers of all three dialects of BANZSL, with many younger signers unaware which signs are recent imports.

Between Auslan, BSL and NZSL, 82% of signs are identical (per Swadesh list
Swadesh list
A Swadesh list is one of several lists of vocabulary with basic meanings, developed by Morris Swadesh from 1940 onward, with the final, posthumously published version 1971 [1972], which is used in lexicostatistics and glottochronology .- Versions and authors :There are several versions of Swadesh...

s). When considering identical as well as similar or related signs there are 98% cognate signs between the languages. By comparison, ASL and BANZSL have only 31% signs identical, or 44% cognate.

The term BANZSL is not meant to replace the terms BSL, Auslan and NZSL. While each dialect retains its individuality, they may be referred to collectively as BANZSL.

According to Wittmann (1991), Swedish Sign Language also descends from BSL. From Swedish SL arose Portuguese Sign Language
Portuguese Sign Language
Portuguese Sign language is a sign language used mainly by Deaf people in Portugal.It has official recognition....

 and Finnish Sign Language
Finnish Sign Language
Finnish Sign Language is the sign language most commonly used in Finland. There are 5000 Finnish deaf who have Finnish Sign Language as a mother tongue...

, the latter with local admixture; Danish Sign Language
Danish Sign Language
-Classification:Wittmann assigned DSL to the French Sign Language family because of similarities in vocabulary. However, the founder of the first deaf school in Denmark, Peter Atke Castberg , was receptive to local sign and so may have introduced FSL signs to the local language rather than FSL...

 is largely mutually intelligible with Swedish SL, though Wittmann places it in the French Sign Language family
French Sign Language family
The French Sign Language family is a proposed language family of sign languages which includes French Sign Language and American Sign Language, among others....

. Other sources http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=swl state that Swedish SL has no known predecessor.

Languages

  • BSL (sign attested from 1644 may not be BSL)
    • Australian SL (1860. ASL and ISL
      Irish Sign Language
      Irish Sign Language is the sign language of Ireland, used primarily in the Republic of Ireland. It is also used in Northern Ireland, though British Sign Language is also used. Irish Sign Language is more closely related to French Sign Language than to British Sign Language, which was first used...

       influences)
    • New Zealand SL (1800s)
    • South African SL (somewhere between 1846 & 1881)
    • Maritime SL (undated)
    • ? Swedish Sign Language family
      Swedish Sign Language family
      The Swedish Sign Language family is a language family of sign languages, including Swedish Sign Language, Portuguese Sign Language, and Finnish Sign Language....

       (1800)
      • Portuguese SL (1823)
      • Finnish SL (1850s, with local admixture)

See also

  • Old French Sign Language
    Old French Sign Language
    Old French Sign Language is a term that loosely describes the language of the deaf community in 18th century Paris at the time of the establishment of the first deaf schools...

     – a contemporary of BANZSL
  • French Sign Language family
    French Sign Language family
    The French Sign Language family is a proposed language family of sign languages which includes French Sign Language and American Sign Language, among others....

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