Swedish Sign Language family
Encyclopedia
The Swedish Sign Language family is a language family
of sign language
s, including Swedish Sign Language, Portuguese Sign Language
, and Finnish Sign Language
.
Swedish SL started about 1800. Wittmann (1991) proposes that it descends from British Sign Language
. However, other sources state that Swedish SL has no known predecessor. Regardless, Swedish SL in turn gave rise to Portuguese Sign Language
(1823) and Finnish Sign Language
(1850s), the latter with local admixture; Finnish and Swedish Sign are mutually unintelligible.
Ethnologue
reports that Danish Sign Language
is largely mutually intelligible with Swedish Sign, though Wittmann places DSL in the French Sign Language family
.
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
of sign language
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
s, including Swedish Sign Language, 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...
.
Swedish SL started about 1800. Wittmann (1991) proposes that it descends from British Sign Language
BANZSL
BANZSL, or British, Australian and New Zealand Sign Language, is the language of which British Sign Language , Auslan and New Zealand Sign Language may be considered dialects...
. However, other sources state that Swedish SL has no known predecessor. Regardless, Swedish SL in turn gave rise to Portuguese Sign Language
Portuguese Sign Language
Portuguese Sign language is a sign language used mainly by Deaf people in Portugal.It has official recognition....
(1823) 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...
(1850s), the latter with local admixture; Finnish and Swedish Sign are mutually unintelligible.
Ethnologue
Ethnologue
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...
reports that 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 Sign, though Wittmann places DSL 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....
.