![]() The 2021 edition of Ethnologue lists 150 sign languages, while the SIGN-HUB Atlas of Sign Language Structures lists over 200 and notes that there are more which have not been documented or discovered yet. Each country generally has its own native sign language some have more than one. The number of sign languages worldwide is not precisely known. Although signing is used primarily by the deaf and hard of hearing, it is also used by hearing individuals, such as those unable to physically speak, those who have trouble with oral language due to a disability or condition ( augmentative and alternative communication), and those with deaf family members including children of deaf adults. ![]() Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages have developed as useful means of communication and form the core of local deaf cultures. Sign language should not be confused with body language, a type of nonverbal communication. This is supported by the fact that there is substantial overlap between the neural substrates of sign and spoken language processing, despite the obvious differences in modality. Linguists consider both spoken and signed communication to be types of natural language, meaning that both emerged through an abstract, protracted aging process and evolved over time without meticulous planning. Sign languages are not universal and are usually not mutually intelligible, although there are also similarities among different sign languages. Sign languages are full-fledged natural languages with their own grammar and lexicon. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Two men and a woman signing American Sign Language (2008) Preservation of the Sign Language, George W. For signed versions of spoken languages, see manually coded language. There are no estimates of number of speakers for many of them.This article is about primary sign languages of the deaf. Four of them are extinct and many are in the process of disappearing. ![]() It continued in use until about the end of the 19th century, when the Chinese started to switch to standard English.Įthnologue lists 18 pidgins used around the world. Its use spread from master-servant relationships to those between English and Chinese traders and bureaucrats. Chinese Pidgin English ( Chinglish), developed in the 17th century in Canton (Guandong), China,and survived for almost three centuries. The same is true of Pidgin French which disappeared from Vietnam after the French left the country. For instance, Pidgin Russian spoken in Manchuria disappeared when Russian settlers left China after World War II. They disappear when the reason for communication diminishes, as communities either move apart, one community learns the language of the other, or both communities learn a common language (usually the official language of the country). There are other theories about the origin of the term.īecause of their limited function, pidgin languages usually do not last very long, rarely more than several decades. The word, first attested in print in 1850, is thought to be the Chinese mispronunciation of the English word business. The term pidgin has nothing to do with birds. A good example of a non-European pidgin is the Chinook Jargon that was once used by American Indians and European traders in the Pacific Northwest. However, there are also pidgins spoken in parts of Africa, South America, and southeast Asia that are based on languages other than those of the colonial powers. For example, the establishment of plantation economies in the Caribbean, with large groups of slaves from different language backgrounds who came from West Africa, gave rise to a number of pidgins based on English, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese. The major languages are usually the languages of the former major colonial powers, such as English, French, and Portuguese. Usually a pidgin language is a blend of the vocabulary of one major language with the grammar of one or more other languages. Nobody speaks a pidgin as their first language. Pidgins are “on-the-spot” languages that develop when people with no common language come into contact with each other.
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