Knowing About Where Did Sign Language Originate From  

You must have sometimes caught sight of two people exchanging thoughts using facial and hand gestures instead of verbal language. That is the commonest form of sign language seen in our immediate surrounding, but there can be several complex versions and varieties beyond the frontiers of our experience. Have you ever wondered about where did sign language originate from?   

Communication via a sign language depends upon physical sign patterns that hold different significations. Users of sign language mostly use a combination of limb movements to express themselves. This could include arms, fingers, lips, head and even legs. Sign languages are mostly used by hard-hearing and deaf persons and their close associates. Therefore, sign languages become an automatic communication tool for deaf communities.  

The history behind where did sign language originate from 

The 17th century Spain first came out with the written history of sign languages. This book, titled ‘Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos’ and published in Madrid in 1620, was a path-breaking achievement on part of Juan Pablo Bonet. This was also the first conscious effort towards imparting oral education for the deaf and dumb by the aid of physical signs and alphabets.  

In the 18^th century, Charles-Michel de l'Épée derived from Bonet’s book his own collection of alphabets that has remained a standard for contemporary use. Further developments were made in Paris when Abbé de l'Épée established the first of its kind school for deaf children in 1755. The first pass-out of this school was Laurent Clerc and he later founded the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut along with his friend Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. The Gallaudet University in Washington, DC subsequently was established in 1864 and it remains the only international liberal arts university for the deaf.  

Multiple possibilities of sign languages  

However, unless you specialize in the knowledge of sign languages, you can hardly understand what is going on between two people ‘speaking’ through gestures. The grammatical patterns and linguistic rules vary among different sign languages. An interpreter must be thoroughly informed if he has to translate a sign language into ordinary speech. In fact, such a great variety exists between sign languages, that only a handful of them are legally recognized.  

There is an entire gamut of signed codes of oral languages overlapping the purview of sign languages. The Signed English and Warlpiri Sign Language are some of them. You can define a signed code as a particular mode of expressing a spoken language. This helps you to pick up an oral language and extend your grasp over literal quotations from it. There can be various classifications of the signed code of a single language and you can face immense difficulties if you go by the spoken conventions. 

The use of sign languages, however, is no longer restricted amongst the deaf communities. Today you can see various culturally advanced countries using on-stage sign languages to add a new dimension to theatrical performances. The Edo Maajka video “To Što Se Traži” uses a form of sign language for experimental purposes. It is also a mode of poetic exercise for signed poets and cannot be accessed by oral poets as it is.    

How are sign languages read?      

In spite of the element of puzzle about them, sign languages have logical spoken counterparts. This inter-relationship exists though signed and spoken languages are not directly related. In fact, you will find a close geographical pattern of influence between signed languages and the spoken languages to which they are assigned. However, this is no compulsory pattern and you can find exceptions in a spoken language with multiple signed languages connected with it. 

Similarly, a single sign language can have several variations depending on the geographical colony of the deaf. However, despite these variations, an international sign language called Gestuno exists. The deaf used this in special events and ceremonies like the Deaflympics and the World Federation of the Deaf. Researches have concluded that Gestuno was a pidgin form of signed language and much complex in its patterns and gestures. 

The oldest mode of using signed languages is finger spelling, whereby a deaf person uses his fingers to form the shape of alphabets. Evidence has been found in ancient Bibles of Middle Age monks who regularly practiced this system. Signs are often used as a cluster with more than one meaning. There are certain action signs to suggest active words. You can find a range of weather sign languages that have their separate history of evolution in different countries.      

Thus, knowing about ‘where did sign language originate from’ would help you to understand sign language and its implication.