Is sign language the same all around the world? In this article, we are going to take a deep dive into the different sign languages in use around the world and explore key concepts that will help you to navigate the unique linguistic world.
If you haven’t read the first article on sign language “How to Learn Sign Language”, we highly recommend you do, as in this article we’ll be expanding on some of the ideas introduced previously, giving us more insight into the topic.
Is sign language universal? Put simply, the answer is no, there is no universal sign language that everyone can use and understand in the signing community. Just like in spoken languages, even though as a society we are more connected than ever, via the internet and the marvels of modern transport, we still don’t share an international language understood by all; it might be down to our nature as humans; we tend to identify ourselves with our differences. Even within countries, different dialects spring up from region to region so not even people who share a national identity necessarily speak the exact same language in the exact same way. It comes as no surprise then that in sign language, an equally universal tool compared with spoken language, there is no single way of doing things.
However, this thought experiment brings us towards the second more obscure answer to the question. Since sign language has only recently been accepted and standardised within most modern communities, (the European Parliament for example recognised sign languages as official languages as late as 1988), there has been some effort to make sign language more accessible through the creation of International Sign, known as IS.
For those who aren’t language experts, this type of language is known as a pidgin or pidgin language. The term refers to a type of language that lacks a complex grammar system or detailed vocabulary but is sufficient to facilitate communication between two groups who don’t share a common language and often develops because of their interaction. IS can be thought of as a multilingual pidgin, that aims to provide a bridge between not just two communities, but rather the whole international sign language community. Let’s take a look at a more specific manifestation of this language phenomenon, SSE.
What is SSE?
Now that we know what pidgin is, we can look at more localised examples of its use. BSL, meaning British sign language is the proper sign language used in the deaf community in Britain, but since not everyone can speak fluently in what is effectively an entirely separate language, there exists an intermediary pidgin called SSE. What does SSE stand for? It stands for Sign Supported English and it forms a bridge for learners and fluent BSL signers to communicate in a simplified way. SSE uses the signs from BSL which are effectively the words, while retaining the original grammar of English, as a result, it is also the most similar language to English, out of the various sign languages in English-speaking countries. Why exactly is it needed? The reason SSE as a pidgin is so useful is that, perhaps surprisingly, the grammar of BSL is distinct from English itself, meaning that without SSE we would need to spend additional months, even years learning how to sign in the correct grammar. It’s relatively common knowledge that as we grow older, our capacity and the speed at which we can take in new information becomes limited, so for much of the population, having a simplified system is not only convenient but downright necessary so that we can communicate with our friends and loved ones. SSE is just one example out of many, but other national sign languages share a similar situation.
ASL vs BSL
Now that we know about the localised diversity of sign language, with Britain as our example, let’s take a look at how things change when we sign in the same language, with the caveat of being a continent apart. For those who are familiar with terminology and dialect, it won’t come as a surprise that the most widely used English sign languages, (in both the US and the UK respectively), have their differences; the number of differences they have is what’s surprising. This is because they don’t originate from quite the same place culturally, with ASL actually being developed as a collaborative effort between educators in both the US and France, instead of the US and UK as one might expect. This is not to say that there are no similarities between the two since fortunately all three of the countries shared a common religion, which at the time was the originator of the sign languages we use today in these nations. A great example of similarity is how to say “how are you?” in sign language, which is almost the same in both ASL and BSL.
A Helpful Video: How to Sign - How Are You? - Sign LanguageBSL Week - "Good morning, how are you?"
As you can see, it’s not exactly the same, but it’s very close. On the other hand, (get it?) There is also a big difference in the finger spelling methods of the two languages; ASL signs its letters with only one hand, while BSL uses two. This difference alone muddies the waters of communication because it introduces a challenge at the first hurdle, even spelling is a completely new experience for a native user trying to talk to their counterpart from across the Atlantic.
Example differences: BSL vs ASL
Even the sign for ‘sign’ is different in ASL and BSL, and a very large amount of basic BSL signs have ASL counterparts that look completely different. Fortunately, since sign language is based on sight, which is something the vast majority of us share, we can use our intuition to work out what some of the signs mean even if they are different. I like ‘Tea’ as an example of this.
We can make the connection that the signer is saying tea, since both of the signs, despite being different, mimic the act of drinking tea. We might even be able to tell apart the dialects because the BSL sign for ‘tea’ has quite a ‘posh British' nature about it. The real tricky signs are the abstract ones, such as the signs for ‘brother’ and ‘sister’.
There is potentially a reason for these gestures being the way they are, but it’s very hard to tell what that is. As it stands, these signs appear to have little or no relation to one another through their common basis of English. It is noteworthy to say that a lot of these abstract differences occur with more conceptual words. ‘Brother’ and ‘Sister’ are both nouns, sure, but the concept of brotherhood and sisterhood extends far beyond a physical body which we can use to represent them, as a result, simple hand symbols have more unique ways of expressing them than for example ‘tea’ which serves a singular purpose as a beverage. This just goes to show that sign language is undeniably a valid means of communication, since it reproduces nearly all the same phenomena as spoken language in terms of nuance and evolution.
Australian Sign Language
ASL and BSL might be very different, but what about other English-speaking parts of the world? As it turns out, distance does not necessarily correlate with a difference, because BSL and Auslan (Australian sign language) are so similar that they are considered by many to be dialects of the same language. There is even a combined acronym for the sign languages of Australia, New Zealand and Britain: BANZSL.
What about the non-English speaking world?
From a Eurocentric viewpoint, we might naively assume that the most used sign languages if not English derivatives might be other European sign languages like Spanish sign language, or maybe French. Not even close! In fact, the majority of all sign language speakers in the world come from Asia. The most prevalent sign languages, by a number of speakers, are Chinese sign language, Indo-Pakistani sign language and Indonesian sign language. Unfortunately, the figures themselves are not very consistent between sources, so I’ve chosen not to provide any as they might be misleading, but rather to share what appears to be the most used. There are additionally many widely spoken sign languages that still have not been given official status by the country they occupy, which just goes to show that there is still a lot of misunderstanding and obscurity regarding the topic. Nevertheless, the existence of sign language in such a diverse state goes to show that all over the world, sign language seems to be the universal way of solving the problem of communicating with our deaf friends; all the more reason to raise awareness and educate each other about it!
You can read about the history of sign language here. Otherwise, I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about the ways sign language has propagated itself in different places in the world, along with the exciting similarities and differences which can tell us a lot about not just the deaf community, but language as a whole.
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