| Japanese Sign Language | |
|---|---|
| 日本手話Nihon Shuwa | |
| Native to | Japan |
Native speakers | 320,000 (1986)[1] |
Japanese Sign Language family
| |
| Official status | |
| Regulated by | Japanese Federation of the Deaf |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | jsl |
| Glottolog | japa1238 |
Japanese Sign Language (日本手話,nihon-shuwa), also known by the acronymJSL, is the dominantsign language inJapan and is a completenatural language, distinct from but influenced by the spokenJapanese language.
There are 304,000 Deaf and Hard of Hearing people who are above age 18 in Japan (2008). However, there is no specific source about the number of JSL users because of the difficulty in distinguishing who are JSL users and who use other kinds of sign, likeSigned Japanese (対応手話,taiō-shuwa) andPidgin Signed Japanese (中間手話,chūkan-shuwa). According to the Japanese Association for Sign Language Studies,[2] the estimated number of JSL users is around 60,000 in Japan.
Little is known aboutsign language and thedeaf community before theEdo period. In 1862, theTokugawa shogunate dispatched envoys to various European schools for the deaf but the first school for the deaf was not established until 1878 inKyōto. It was founded byTashiro Furukawa, who also developed what would become JSL.[3][4]
Until 1948, deaf children were not required to attend school or to receive a formal education.[5]
In the second half of the 20th century, a subtle cultural change in views about the Deaf in Japan evolved. The long-standing concept thatdeaf only means "people who cannot hear" emphasized a physical impairment as part of a biomedical disease model; however, this was gradually replaced by a slightly different paradigm. Deaf people were more often identified as people who use Japanese sign language. In other words, thebiomedical disability model began slowly to be displaced by asocial-cultural or JSL paradigm.[6]
TheJapanese Federation of the Deaf has worked with slow success in efforts to enhance communication opportunities for Japanese whose primary language is JSL.[7]
The changing status of JSL and the Deaf in Japan is a slow process, but there are highlights. For example, JSL has an advocate among the Imperial family.Kiko, Princess Akishino has studied JSL and is a trained sign language interpreter.[8] She attends the Sign Language Speech Contest for High School Students held every August, and Praising Mothers Raising Children with Hearing Impairments every December. In October 2008, she participated in the 38th National Deaf Women's Conference.[9] She also signs in informal Deaf gatherings.[10]
The Deaf community supported passage of the proposed Sign Language Law.[11] The Basic Act for Persons with Disabilities was enacted in 2011. This law recognized sign language as a language.[12]
The slow integration of JSL within the context of Japanese culture has been accompanied by an expansion of the numbers of sign language interpreters:
In 2006, the Japanese government amended the Supporting Independence of People with Disabilities Act. The new language in the law encourages local governments to increase the number and use of JSL interpreters.[14]
Japanese Sign Language is often confused with othermanually coded language for communicating that are used in Japan. JSL is a naturally evolved language, and like any other language has its own linguistic structures. Manual systems for expressing a spoken language often lead to ungrammatical structures and incomplete sentences in both the spoken and signed language. In Japan, there are three kinds of sign terms:[15]
JSL is the only one of these to be considered a true sign language, as opposed to anencoding of spoken Japanese. However, these three kinds of sign are all widely referred to asshuwa (手話;lit. 'manual language') in Japan.
These are not to be confused with the following, as they are distinct languages in separatelanguage families:
The sign languages ofKorea (KSL;Korean: 한국 수화;Hanja: 韓國手話;RR: Hanguk Suhwa) andTaiwan (TSL;Chinese:台灣手語;pinyin:Táiwān Shǒuyǔ) share some signs with JSL, perhaps due to cultural transfer during the period of Japanese occupation. JSL has about a 60% lexical similarity withTaiwanese Sign Language.[16]
The conflict on the definition of JSL andTaiou Shuwa continues, and it affects Deaf education.[17] In the 1990s,oral education, long in use, was replaced with thetotal communication method. Previously, Deaf children were forced to speak and banned from using sign language in all schools for the Deaf. With the total communication method, teachers use multiple modes of communication, includingspoken language,written language, andsimultaneous communication, to fit each Deaf child. The use of sign language spread in Japan at that time, but it was used along with speaking, as insimultaneous communication with Taiou Shuwa.
In 2003, the Japan Deaf Children and Parents Association published a civil rights remedy statement called "Rights of Deaf children to education equality were infringed". They requested teachers who can teach JSL in all schools, and they demanded the JSL cambism[clarification needed] course in all universities give a license for teachers of the Deaf. However, theJapanese Federation of the Deaf said "human rights may be infringed by distinguishing the two communication methods for users of JSL and Taiou Shuwa,"[citation needed] with some agreement from the Japan Deaf Children and Parents Association. Finally, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations prepared the document "Opinion to require enriched sign education," and used the wordsign instead of JSL. The statement did not have the power to add the requirement that teachers can teach in JSL in all schools for the Deaf.
Currently, JSL is used in only oneprivate school inTokyo, Meisei Gakuen, and the other schools for the Deaf use other communication methods.
Bilingual education for the Deaf (see alsoBilingual–bicultural education) aims to acquire JSL andwritten language. Some parents select other language modalities as well, likespoken language, to communicate with their children. Some parents also opt to use other tools, such ascochlear implants andhearing aids, for their Deaf children with sign language. In regards to Deaf education, using sign was cited in studies as it prevents from acquiringwritten language for a long time.[clarification needed]
However, recent articles[18] have reported that children with fluency in a first language have the ability to acquire a second language, like otherforeign language learners, even though the modalities are different. Therefore, the most important factor is to acquire fluency in one'sfirst language. The future task is to consider how to bridge Japanese Sign Language andwritten language in bilingual education.
In Japan, the bilingual education has been in free school (Tatsunoko Gakuen) since 1999 and school (Meisei Gakuen) since 2009.
In 2011, the first sign language law was established on "language" as an act for persons with disabilities on July 29,[clarification needed] and it was announced on August 5. After this, sign language was acknowledged as a form of language by law in Japan.
In 2013, the first sign language law was established inTottori Prefecture. The law stated "Sign is language".[citation needed] From then on, sign language law has spread across the country at the prefecture level. There are goals to establish a sign language law at the national level.
However, there are two conflicting positions[19] on sign language law as the sign language laws were not written in reference to JSL. One position claims that it is dangerous to mislead that sign language includes not only JSL, but alsoTaiou Shuwa (manually-coded Japanese orsimultaneous communication) andChuukan Shuwa (contact sign). The other claims that by establishing JSL, the language law makes it easy to discriminate against various sign users (deaf and mute people).
Interest in sign language among the hearing population of Japan has been increasing, with numerous books now published targeting the hearing population, a weekly TV program teaching JSL, and the increasing availability of night school classes for the hearing to learn JSL. There have been several TV dramas, includingHoshi no Kinka (1995), in which signing has been a significant part of the plot, and sign language dramas are now a minor genre on Japanese TV.
The highly acclaimed 2006 filmBabel, which was directed byAlejandro González Iñárritu and nominated for multipleAcademy Awards, also featured JSL as a significant element of the plot. Hearing actressRinko Kikuchi received aBest Supporting Actress nomination for her signing role in this film. In Japan, about 40,000 signatures including both the hearing and deaf people were collected to subtitle the scene inBabel spoken in Japanese for the deaf audience.[20]
The anime school drama filmA Silent Voice (Koe no Katachi (聲の形) lit. 'The Shape of Voice'), released in 2016, features a prominent deaf JSL-speaking character, Shōko Nishimiya. It was produced byKyoto Animation, directed byNaoko Yamada, written byReiko Yoshida, and featured character designs byFutoshi Nishiya. It is based on themanga of the same name written and illustrated byYoshitoki Ōima. The film premiered in Japan on September 17, 2016.
A manga series titledA Sign of Affection (ゆびさきと恋々,Yubisaki to Renren) by the author Suu Morishita which features several JSL-speaking characters including the main deaf character Yuki Itose was adapted into anime series on January 6, 2024, byAjia-do Animation Works.
As in other sign languages, JSL (usually called simply手話shuwa, 'hand talk') consists of words, or signs, and the grammar with which they are put together. JSL signs may be nouns, verbs, adjectives, or any other part of a sentence, including suffixes indicatingtense,negation, andgrammatical particles. Signs consist not just of a manual gesture, but alsomouthing (口話,kōwa; 'mouth talk') (pronouncing a standard Japanese word with or without making a sound). The same sign may assume one of two different butsemantically related meanings, as for example inhome andhouse, according to itsmouthing. Another indispensable part of many signs is facial expression.
In addition to signs and their grammar, JSL is augmented by 'finger letters' (指文字,yubimoji), a form offingerspelling, which was introduced from theUnited States in the early part of the twentieth century, but is used less often than inAmerican Sign Language. Eachyubimoji corresponds to akana, as illustrated by theJSL syllabary. Fingerspelling is used mostly for foreign words, last names, and unusual words.Pantomime (身振り,miburi; 'gestures') is used to cover situations where existing signs are not sufficient.
Because JSL is strongly influenced by the complexJapanese writing system, it dedicates particular attention to the written language and includes elements specifically designed to expresskanji in signs. For either conciseness or disambiguation, particular signs are associated with certain commonly usedkanji, place names, and sometimes surnames. Finger writing (空書,kūsho; 'air writing') (tracingkanji in the air) is also sometimes used for last names or place names, just as it is in spoken Japanese.
Some communities where deafness is relatively common and which have historically had little contact with mainland Japan have formed their ownvillage sign languages:
The increase in communication has led to an increasing influence of the Japanese sign over the village forms.
