Is there one universal sign language?
A deaf American and a deaf Briton share a spoken language on paper, yet their sign languages do not understand each other.
▶ Start the storyNo. There is no single universal sign language. Wherever communities of deaf people exist, they have developed their own, so sign languages, like spoken ones, differ from place to place and are usually not . The 2021 edition of the language catalogue Ethnologue lists 150 sign languages, and an atlas of sign language structures lists over 200 and says more remain undocumented.
The best proof is a surprising pair. People in the United Kingdom and the United States speak the same language, English, yet British Sign Language (BSL) and American Sign Language (ASL) are quite different and mutually unintelligible. Sign languages are independent of the spoken languages around them. Even the finger alphabets differ: ASL spells with one hand, BSL with two.
ASL (United States)
- Spells with one hand
- Related to French Sign Language
- Not understood by BSL signers
BSL (United Kingdom)
- Spells with two hands
- Auslan and NZSL descend from it
- Recognised in law in 2003 and 2022
The reverse also happens. South Africa has 11 official spoken languages, but only one sign language, with two variants, because two major schools for the deaf served different parts of the country. So the map of sign languages does not follow the map of spoken ones. It follows the history of where deaf people met, lived and went to school.
What happens when signers from different countries meet? At international deaf events such as the , many use International Sign. Researchers say it is more complex than a typical , and more like a full sign language, but it is a meeting ground, not a language that replaced the national ones.
Quiz me
0/3
Recap
Sign languages are not universal: each deaf community made its own, so they follow school and community history, not spoken languages.
💡 A trick to remember it · Think of sign languages as rivers, not one ocean: each community has its own, and where they meet they form a shared stretch like International Sign.
Surprising fact · A country with 11 official spoken languages, South Africa, has only one sign language, with two variants.
Sources (4)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (14 claims) cites at least one of these.