| BANZSL | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Great Britain,Northern Ireland,South Africa,Newfoundland and Labrador,Maritimes,Australia andNew Zealand |
| Linguistic classification | One of the world'ssignlanguage families |
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | bsli1234 |
 Areas where BANZSL languages are signed Areas where a BANZSL language is fading from use | |
British, Australian and New Zealand Sign Language (BANZSL,/ˈbænzəl/[1]), or theBritish Sign Language (BSL) family, is alanguage family or grouping encompassing three relatedsign languages:British Sign Language,Auslan andNew Zealand Sign Language (NZSL). The termBANZSL was coined informally by the linguistsTrevor Johnston and Adam Schembri in the early 2000s.[2] 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".[1] As a result, Schembri says he and Johnston have disowned the term due to pushback from Deaf communities, concerned that it is replacing the names of each of the three languages.[1][3]
BSL, Auslan and NZSL all have their roots in a Deaf sign language used in Britain during the 19th century. The three languages in question are related in their use of similar grammar,manual alphabet, and high degree of lexical (sign) overlap.
American Sign Language and the BANZSL varieties are not part of the same language family. However, there is still significant overlap in vocabulary, probably due largely to relatively recent borrowing of lexicon by signers of all three BANZSL varieties, with many younger signers unaware which signs are recent imports.
Between Auslan, BSL and NZSL, 82% of signs are identical (perSwadesh lists). 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. Further information will be available after completion of the BSL corpus,[4] allows for comparison with the Auslan corpus,[5] and the New Zealand Sign Language project.[6]
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 toHenri Wittmann (1991),Swedish Sign Language also descends from BSL. From Swedish SL arosePortuguese Sign Language andFinnish Sign Language, the latter with local admixture;Danish Sign Language is largely mutually intelligible with Swedish SL, though Wittmann places it in theFrench Sign Language family.
Anderson (1979) instead suggested thatSwedish Sign,German Sign andBritish Sign share one origin in a "North-West European" sign language.[7]
| BANZSL family tree | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)