| Maritime Sign Language (MSL) | |
|---|---|
| Langue des Signes Maritime | |
 Top: "MSL" in two-handed BANZSL fingerspelling Bottom: "MSL" in one-handed ASL fingerspelling | |
| Native to | Canada |
| Region | Atlantic Canada |
Native speakers | 90 (2009)[1] |
BANZSL
| |
| none | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | nsr |
| Glottolog | mari1381 |
| ELP | Maritime Sign Language |
 | |
Maritime Sign Language (MSL;French:Langue des signes maritime) is asign language used inCanada'sAtlantic provinces.
Maritime Sign Language is descended from British Sign Language[2][3] through the convergence ofdeaf communities from theNortheastern United States and theUnited Kingdom who immigrated to Canada during the 18th and 19th centuries.[4] As late as the mid-20th century, it was the dominant form of sign language inThe Maritimes and the language of instruction at theHalifax School for the Deaf (1857–1961) and theAtlantic Provinces Special Education Authority inAmherst, Nova Scotia (1961–1995).[3][5]
MSL is being supplanted byAmerican Sign Language (ASL), so that by 2020, MSL has been largely restricted to older Deaf people in the Maritimes.[3] Younger generations are educated in ASL and have less knowledge of and less regard for MSL, while some of the older generation remain loyal to MSL.[4] The number of MSL speakers is unknown and was estimated to have been fewer than 100 in 2009;[4] most were concentrated in Nova Scotia, some in New Brunswick, while almost none were thought to remain in Newfoundland and Labrador (only three were said to exist) or Prince Edward Island.[4]: 14 ASL and MSL have 'blended' in the region.[3] ASL has been demonstrated to influence the vocabulary and grammar of MSL; for example, because the originalBANZSL two-handed manual alphabet is no longer used in the Maritimes[4]: 8, 9, 75, 142 and has been replaced by the one-handedAmerican manual alphabet,lexicalized signs are developed from one-handedfingerspelling.[4]: 142
Resources (education, interpretation, etc.) for MSL speakers are largely lacking, but a grant to the Nova Scotia Cultural Society of the Deaf producedVHS tapes documenting the language, and in the 2010s a project was started to document placenames in Atlantic Canada in both MSL and ASL, resulting in interactive online maps.[3]
The language is recorded in a 2017 documentary film,Halifax Explosion: The Deaf Experience, and was contrasted with ASL to comic effect in a piece performed at the 2019 Sound Off Theatre Festival inEdmonton about a Nova Scotian and an American travelling in Eastern Canada.[3]
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