British, Australian and New Zealand Sign Language (BANZSL, ), or the British Sign Language (BSL) family, is a language family or grouping encompassing three related sign languages: British Sign Language, Auslan and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL). The term BANZSL was coined informally by the linguists Trevor Johnston and Adam Schembri in the early 2000s. However, in 2024, Schembri remarked that the Wikipedia article on BANZSL had begun describing it with the more specific or authoritative meaning of "the language from which modern BSL and Auslan and New Zealand sign language have descended", a meaning that "took on a life of its own—something that we didn't intend". allows for comparison with the Auslan corpus, and the New Zealand Sign Language project.

There continues to be language contact between BSL, Auslan and NZSL through migration (deaf people and interpreters), the media (television programmes such as See Hear, Switch, Rush and SignPost are often recorded and shared informally in all three countries) and conferences (in 1999 many deaf British people travelled to Australia for the World Federation of the Deaf Conference, WFD, in Brisbane).

According to Henri Wittmann (1991), Swedish Sign Language also descends from BSL. From Swedish SL arose Portuguese Sign Language and Finnish Sign Language, the latter with local admixture; Danish Sign Language is largely mutually intelligible with Swedish SL, though Wittmann places it in the French Sign Language family.

Anderson (1979) instead suggested that Swedish Sign, German Sign and British Sign share one origin in a "North-West European" sign language.

Languages

  • BSL (sign attested from 1644 may not be BSL), with approximately 151,000 users
  • Auslan (1860. ASL and ISL influences), with approximately 10 000 users
  • Papua New Guinea Sign Language (), which is a creole formed with Auslan, used by 30,000 people
  • Fiji Sign Language, an indigenous base with a large amount of Auslan vocabulary
  • New Zealand SL (1800s), used by approximately 20,000 people
  • Northern Ireland SL (19th century - with American Sign Language and Irish Sign Language influences)
  • South African SL (somewhere between 1846 & 1881), used by perhaps 235,000 people
  • Maritime SL (), with perhaps 100 extant users
  • ? Swedish Sign Language family (1800)
  • Swedish Sign Language (1800)
  • Finnish SL (1850s, with local admixture)
  • Finland-Swedish SL (1850s, a middle form between Finnish and Swedish SL)
  • Eritrean Sign (1955, with much local admixture)
  • Portuguese SL (1823)
  • Cape Verdian Sign (1990s, with local admixture)

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See also

  • Old French Sign Language – a contemporary of BANZSL
  • French Sign Language family

Notes

References

  • Johnston, T. (2003). BSL, Auslan and NZSL: Three signed languages or one? In A. Baker, B. van den Bogaerde & O. Crasborn (Eds.), "Cross-linguistic perspectives in sign language research: Selected papers from TISLR 2000" (pp.&nbsp;47–69). Hamburg: Signum Verlag.
  • McKee, D. & G. Kennedy (2000). Lexical Comparison of Signs from American, Australian, British, and New Zealand Sign Languages. In K. Emmorey and H. Lane (Eds), "The signs of language revisited: an anthology to honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima". Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.