| Thai Sign Language | |
|---|---|
| ภาษามือไทย | |
 | |
| Native to | Thailand |
Native speakers | estimated 90,000–300,000 deaf (2008)[1] |
Creole ofAmerican Sign (French family),Old Bangkok Sign andOld Chiangmai Sign. Possibly related tosign languages in Vietnam and Laos. | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | tsq |
| Glottolog | thai1240 |
Thai Sign Language (TSL;Thai:ภาษามือไทย), orModern Standard Thai Sign Language (MSTSL), is the nationalsign language ofThailand'sdeaf community and is used in most parts of the country by the 20 percent of the estimated 56,000 pre-linguistically deaf people who go to school.[2]
Thai Sign Language is related toAmerican Sign Language (ASL), and belongs to the samelanguage family as ASL.[3] This relatedness is due tolanguage contact andcreolisation that has occurred between ASL, which was introduced intodeaf schools in Thailand in the 1950s by American-trained Thai educators,[4] and at least two indigenous sign languages that were in use at the time:Old Bangkok Sign Language andChiangmai Sign Language.[3] These original sign languages probably developed in market towns and urban areas where deaf people had opportunities to meet. They are now consideredmoribund languages, remembered by older signers but no longer used for daily conversation.[5] These older varieties may be related to thesign languages of Vietnam andLaos.[6]
Thai Sign Language was acknowledged as "the national language of deaf people in Thailand" in August 1999, in a resolution signed by the Minister of Education on behalf of the Royal Thai Government. As with many sign languages, the means of transmission to children occurs within families with signing deaf parents and in schools for the deaf. A robust process of language teaching and acculturation among deaf children has been documented and photographed in the Thai residential schools for the deaf.[7]
There are other moribund sign languages in the country such asBan Khor Sign Language.
