Manually Coded Language
Encyclopedia
Manually coded languages (MCLs) are representations of spoken languages in a gestural-visual form; that is, "sign language" versions of spoken languages. Unlike the sign language
s that have evolved naturally in Deaf communities, which have distinct spatial structures, manually coded languages are the invention of hearing people
, and mostly follow the grammar
of the spoken language — or, more precisely, of the written form of the spoken language. They have been mainly used in deaf education
and by sign language interpreters
, although they have had some influence on Deaf sign languages where their implementation was widespread.
, but these are usually limited in scope and rarely develop into complete representations of a spoken language. One of the most elaborated examples of this kind of auxiliary manual system is Warlpiri Sign Language
, a complete signed mode of spoken Warlpiri
which was developed by an Indigenous
community in central Australia
due to cultural proscriptions against speech. Sign language linguists usually make a distinction between these auxiliary sign languages and manually coded languages; the latter are specifically designed for use in Deaf education, and usually represent the written form of the language.
In seventh century England, Bede
, a Benedictine
monk, proposed a system for representing the letters of the Latin alphabet
on the fingers. Monastic Sign Language
s used throughout medieval Europe used manual alphabets as well as signs, and were capable of representing a written language, if one had enough patience. Aside from the commonly understood rationale of observing "vows of silence
", they also served as mnemonic
s (memory aids) for preachers. These manual alphabets began to be used to teach the deaf children of royalty in 17th century Spain, and can be seen as a kind of proto-manually coded language. Such alphabets are in widespread use today by signing deaf communities for representing words or phrases of the spoken language used in their part of the world.
The earliest known attempt to develop a complete signed mode of a language which could be used to teach deaf children was by the Abbé de l'Épée, an educator from 18th century France. While the Deaf community already used a sign language (now known as Old French Sign Language
), Épée thought it must be primitive, and set about designing a complete visual-gestural system to represent the concepts of religion and law that he wanted to impart to his pupils. His system of signes méthodiques (usually known in English as "Methodical Signs") was quite idiosyncratic, and although it wasn't a strict representation of French, its success laid the groundwork for the "signed spoken languages" of today. The real proliferation of such systems occurred in the latter half of the 20th century, and by the 1980s, manually coded languages were the dominant form of communication used by teachers and interpreters in classrooms with deaf students in many parts of the world. Most sign language "interpreting
" seen on television in the 1970s and 1980s would have in fact been a transliteration
of a spoken language into a manually coded language.
The emerging recognition of sign languages in recent times has curbed the growth of manually coded languages, and in many places, interpreting and educational services now favor the use of the natural sign languages of the Deaf community. In some parts of the world, MCLs continue to be developed and supported by state institutions; a contemporary example is Arabic Sign Language. Some MCL systems (such as the Paget Gorman Sign System
) have survived by shifting their focus from deaf education to people with other kinds of communication needs.
" who believe Deaf people should speak, lipread and use hearing aids rather than sign — and on the other side, from defenders of Deaf culture
who resist attempts to supplant their community language with the language of the dominant (Hearing) culture. Members of the signing Deaf community usually find MCLs "unnatural" and "cumbersome", but elements of these systems have also had an influence on deaf sign languages (see Contact Sign
).
Research in the U.S. have shown that Manually Coded English
is usually applied incompletely and inconsistently in classrooms: Hearing teachers tend to "cut corners" by not signing word endings and "function word
s", possibly because they slow down the pace and distort the phrasing of the teacher's natural speech. The result is a kind of "Pidgin Sign English" which lacks the grammatical complexity of both English and American Sign Language
.
everything, a technique sometimes known in English as the "Rochester method" after Rochester School for the Deaf in New York
where it was used from 1878 until the 1940s. While most MCLs are slower than spoken or sign languages, this method is especially so, and in modern times is generally considered not to be accessible to children. However, some deafblind people still communicate primarily using the Rochester Method. Most manually coded languages can accommodate Simultaneous Communication
— that is, signing and speaking at the same time — although the natural pace of speech may need to be slowed down at times.
A unique system that was widespread in British deaf education from the 1960s to the 1980s is the Paget Gorman Sign System
. Developed in Britain 1930s, it uses 37 basic signs and 21 standard hand postures to represent a large vocabulary of English words, word endings and verb tenses.
") from the local deaf sign language
as a base, then adding specially-created signs for words and word endings that don't exist in the deaf sign language, often using "initializations", and filling in any gaps with fingerspelling
. Thus "Signed English" in America (based on ASL
) has a lexicon quite different from "Signed English" in Britain
(based on BSL
), as well as the Signed Englishes of Ireland, Australasia and South Africa. "Signing Exact English
" (SEE2) was developed in the United States in 1969, has also been taught around the world, and is now used in deaf schools in Singapore
, and taught in classes by the Singapore Association for the Deaf.
s (sounds) of a spoken language, rather than the written form of a spoken language. These systems are sometimes known as "Mouth Hand Systems" (MHS). An early example was developed in Denmark in 1903 by Georg Forchhammer. Others include the Assisted Kinemes Alphabet (Belgium) and an Iran
ian system developed in 1935 by Jabar Baghtcheban — in addition to the most widespread MHS worldwide, Cued Speech
. As the entire set of phonemes for a spoken language is small (English has 35 to 45, depending on the dialect
), an MHS is relatively easy to adapt for other languages. As of 2006, 60 languages or dialects have Cued Speech systems, though many are not in use or in marginal use.
Cued Speech can be seen as a manual supplement to lipreading. A small number of hand shapes (representing consonant
s) and locations near the mouth (representing vowel
s) differentiate between sounds not distinguishable from on the lips; in tonal languages
, the inclination and movement of the hand follows the tone. When viewed together with lip patterns, the gestures render all phoneme
s of the spoken language intelligible visually.
Cued Speech is not traditionally referred to as a manually coded language; although it was developed with the same aims as the Signed Spoken Languages, to improve English language literacy in Deaf children, it follows the sounds rather than the written form of the spoken language. Thus, speakers with different accents will "cue" differently.
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
s that have evolved naturally in Deaf communities, which have distinct spatial structures, manually coded languages are the invention of hearing people
Hearing (person)
The term hearing or hearing person, from the perspective of mainstream English-language culture, refers to someone whose sense of hearing is at the medical norm. From this point of view, someone who is not fully hearing has a hearing impairment or is said to be hard of hearing or deaf. The...
, and mostly follow the grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
of the spoken language — or, more precisely, of the written form of the spoken language. They have been mainly used in deaf education
Deaf education
Deaf education is the academic discipline concerned the education of students with various hearing capabilities in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs.Deaf education also includes the study of:* Special education...
and by sign language interpreters
Interpreting
Language interpretation is the facilitating of oral or sign-language communication, either simultaneously or consecutively, between users of different languages...
, although they have had some influence on Deaf sign languages where their implementation was widespread.
History
It is unknown when the first attempts were made to represent a spoken language with gesture. Indeed, some have speculated that spoken languages may have evolved from sign languages, and there may be undocumented cases in history when spoken and signed modes of a language existed side by side. It is not uncommon for people to develop gestures to replace words or phrases in contexts where speech is not possible or not permitted, such as in a television studioTelevision studio
A television studio is an installation in which a video productions take place, either for the recording of live television to video tape, or for the acquisition of raw footage for post-production. The design of a studio is similar to, and derived from, movie studios, with a few amendments for the...
, but these are usually limited in scope and rarely develop into complete representations of a spoken language. One of the most elaborated examples of this kind of auxiliary manual system is Warlpiri Sign Language
Warlpiri Sign Language
Warlpiri Sign Language is a sign language used by the Warlpiri, an Aboriginal community in the central desert region of Australia. It is one of the most elaborate, and certainly the most studied, of all Australian Aboriginal sign languages.-Social context:...
, a complete signed mode of spoken Warlpiri
Warlpiri language
The Warlpiri language is spoken by about 3000 of the Warlpiri people in Australia's Northern Territory. It is one of the Ngarrkic languages of the large Southwest branch of the Pama–Nyungan family, and is one of the largest aboriginal languages in Australia in terms of number of speakers.-...
which was developed by an Indigenous
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
community in central Australia
Central Australia
Central Australia/Alice Springs Region is one of the five regions in the Northern Territory. The term Central Australia is used to describe an area centred on Alice Springs in Australia. It is sometimes referred to as Centralia; likewise the people of the area are sometimes called Centralians...
due to cultural proscriptions against speech. Sign language linguists usually make a distinction between these auxiliary sign languages and manually coded languages; the latter are specifically designed for use in Deaf education, and usually represent the written form of the language.
In seventh century England, Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...
, a Benedictine
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
monk, proposed a system for representing the letters of the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
on the fingers. Monastic Sign Language
Monastic sign language
Monastic sign languages have been used in Europe from at least the 10th century by Christian monks, and some, such as Cistercian and Trappist sign, are still in use today—not only in Europe but also in Japan, China and the USA...
s used throughout medieval Europe used manual alphabets as well as signs, and were capable of representing a written language, if one had enough patience. Aside from the commonly understood rationale of observing "vows of silence
Vow of silence
A vow of silence is a religious vow, usually taken in a monastic context, to maintain silence. Known as Mauna in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism, the practice is integral to Christian and Islamic traditions as well...
", they also served as mnemonic
Mnemonic
A mnemonic , or mnemonic device, is any learning technique that aids memory. To improve long term memory, mnemonic systems are used to make memorization easier. Commonly encountered mnemonics are often verbal, such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something,...
s (memory aids) for preachers. These manual alphabets began to be used to teach the deaf children of royalty in 17th century Spain, and can be seen as a kind of proto-manually coded language. Such alphabets are in widespread use today by signing deaf communities for representing words or phrases of the spoken language used in their part of the world.
The earliest known attempt to develop a complete signed mode of a language which could be used to teach deaf children was by the Abbé de l'Épée, an educator from 18th century France. While the Deaf community already used a sign language (now known as Old French Sign Language
Old French Sign Language
Old French Sign Language is a term that loosely describes the language of the deaf community in 18th century Paris at the time of the establishment of the first deaf schools...
), Épée thought it must be primitive, and set about designing a complete visual-gestural system to represent the concepts of religion and law that he wanted to impart to his pupils. His system of signes méthodiques (usually known in English as "Methodical Signs") was quite idiosyncratic, and although it wasn't a strict representation of French, its success laid the groundwork for the "signed spoken languages" of today. The real proliferation of such systems occurred in the latter half of the 20th century, and by the 1980s, manually coded languages were the dominant form of communication used by teachers and interpreters in classrooms with deaf students in many parts of the world. Most sign language "interpreting
Interpreting
Language interpretation is the facilitating of oral or sign-language communication, either simultaneously or consecutively, between users of different languages...
" seen on television in the 1970s and 1980s would have in fact been a transliteration
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
of a spoken language into a manually coded language.
The emerging recognition of sign languages in recent times has curbed the growth of manually coded languages, and in many places, interpreting and educational services now favor the use of the natural sign languages of the Deaf community. In some parts of the world, MCLs continue to be developed and supported by state institutions; a contemporary example is Arabic Sign Language. Some MCL systems (such as the Paget Gorman Sign System
Paget Gorman Sign System
The Paget Gorman Sign System, also known as Paget Gorman Signed Speech or Paget Gorman Systematic Sign Language is a manually coded form of the English language, designed to be used with children with speech or communication difficulties....
) have survived by shifting their focus from deaf education to people with other kinds of communication needs.
Criticisms
The use of MCLs is controversial, and has been opposed since Épée's time by "oralistsOralism
Oralism is the education of deaf students through spoken language by using lip reading, speech, and mimicking the mouth shapes and breathing patterns of speech instead of using sign language within the classroom...
" who believe Deaf people should speak, lipread and use hearing aids rather than sign — and on the other side, from defenders of Deaf culture
Deaf culture
Deaf culture describes the social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values and shared institutions of communities that are affected by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication. When used as a cultural label, the word deaf is often written with a...
who resist attempts to supplant their community language with the language of the dominant (Hearing) culture. Members of the signing Deaf community usually find MCLs "unnatural" and "cumbersome", but elements of these systems have also had an influence on deaf sign languages (see Contact Sign
Contact Sign
A contact sign language, or contact sign, is a variety or style of language that arises from contact between a deaf sign language and a spoken language...
).
Research in the U.S. have shown that Manually Coded English
Manually Coded English
Manually Coded English is a general term used to describe a variety of visual communication methods expressed through the hands which attempt to represent the English language...
is usually applied incompletely and inconsistently in classrooms: Hearing teachers tend to "cut corners" by not signing word endings and "function word
Function word
Function words are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning, but instead serve to express grammatical relationships with other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker...
s", possibly because they slow down the pace and distort the phrasing of the teacher's natural speech. The result is a kind of "Pidgin Sign English" which lacks the grammatical complexity of both English and American Sign Language
American Sign Language
American Sign Language, or ASL, for a time also called Ameslan, is the dominant sign language of Deaf Americans, including deaf communities in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...
.
Major approaches
There have been many different approaches to manually coding spoken languages. Some consist of fingerspellingFingerspelling
Fingerspelling is the representation of the letters of a writing system, and sometimes numeral systems, using only the hands. These manual alphabets , have often been used in deaf education, and have subsequently been adopted as a distinct part of a number of sign languages around the world...
everything, a technique sometimes known in English as the "Rochester method" after Rochester School for the Deaf in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
where it was used from 1878 until the 1940s. While most MCLs are slower than spoken or sign languages, this method is especially so, and in modern times is generally considered not to be accessible to children. However, some deafblind people still communicate primarily using the Rochester Method. Most manually coded languages can accommodate Simultaneous Communication
Simultaneous Communication
Simultaneous Communication, SimCom or Sign Supported Speech is a technique sometimes used by deaf, hard-of-hearing or hearing sign language persons in which both a spoken language and a manual variant of that language are used simultaneously...
— that is, signing and speaking at the same time — although the natural pace of speech may need to be slowed down at times.
A unique system that was widespread in British deaf education from the 1960s to the 1980s is the Paget Gorman Sign System
Paget Gorman Sign System
The Paget Gorman Sign System, also known as Paget Gorman Signed Speech or Paget Gorman Systematic Sign Language is a manually coded form of the English language, designed to be used with children with speech or communication difficulties....
. Developed in Britain 1930s, it uses 37 basic signs and 21 standard hand postures to represent a large vocabulary of English words, word endings and verb tenses.
Signed spoken languages
These systems ("Signed English", "Signed German" and so on) were the vehicle for the world-wide explosion of MCLs in deaf education in the second half of the 20th century, and are what is generally meant by the phrase "manually coded language" today. They aim to be a word-for-word representation of the written form of a spoken language, and accordingly require the development of an enormous vocabulary. They usually achieve this by taking signs ("lexiconLexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
") from the local deaf sign language
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
as a base, then adding specially-created signs for words and word endings that don't exist in the deaf sign language, often using "initializations", and filling in any gaps with fingerspelling
Fingerspelling
Fingerspelling is the representation of the letters of a writing system, and sometimes numeral systems, using only the hands. These manual alphabets , have often been used in deaf education, and have subsequently been adopted as a distinct part of a number of sign languages around the world...
. Thus "Signed English" in America (based on ASL
American Sign Language
American Sign Language, or ASL, for a time also called Ameslan, is the dominant sign language of Deaf Americans, including deaf communities in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...
) has a lexicon quite different from "Signed English" in Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
(based on BSL
British Sign Language
British Sign Language is the sign language used in the United Kingdom , and is the first or preferred language of some deaf people in the UK; there are 125,000 deaf adults in the UK who use BSL plus an estimated 20,000 children. The language makes use of space and involves movement of the hands,...
), as well as the Signed Englishes of Ireland, Australasia and South Africa. "Signing Exact English
Signing Exact English
Signing Exact English is a system of manual communication that strives to be an exact representation of English vocabulary and grammar...
" (SEE2) was developed in the United States in 1969, has also been taught around the world, and is now used in deaf schools in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, and taught in classes by the Singapore Association for the Deaf.
Mouth Hand Systems
Another widespread approach is to visually represent the phonemePhoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s (sounds) of a spoken language, rather than the written form of a spoken language. These systems are sometimes known as "Mouth Hand Systems" (MHS). An early example was developed in Denmark in 1903 by Georg Forchhammer. Others include the Assisted Kinemes Alphabet (Belgium) and an Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian system developed in 1935 by Jabar Baghtcheban — in addition to the most widespread MHS worldwide, Cued Speech
Cued speech
Cued Speech is a system of communication used with and among deaf or hard of hearing people. It is a phonemic-based system which makes traditionally spoken languages accessible by using a small number of handshapes in different locations near the mouth , as a supplement to lipreading...
. As the entire set of phonemes for a spoken language is small (English has 35 to 45, depending on the dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
), an MHS is relatively easy to adapt for other languages. As of 2006, 60 languages or dialects have Cued Speech systems, though many are not in use or in marginal use.
Cued Speech can be seen as a manual supplement to lipreading. A small number of hand shapes (representing consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s) and locations near the mouth (representing vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s) differentiate between sounds not distinguishable from on the lips; in tonal languages
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
, the inclination and movement of the hand follows the tone. When viewed together with lip patterns, the gestures render all phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s of the spoken language intelligible visually.
Cued Speech is not traditionally referred to as a manually coded language; although it was developed with the same aims as the Signed Spoken Languages, to improve English language literacy in Deaf children, it follows the sounds rather than the written form of the spoken language. Thus, speakers with different accents will "cue" differently.
List of manually coded languages
Note: This list is incomplete. Please add known MCLs.| Language | |Signed Spoken Language | |Mouth-Hand System |
|---|---|---|
| Afrikaans Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape... |
Signed Afrikaans | Cued Speech (Afrikaans) |
| Alu (Thailand) | Cued Speech (Alu) | |
| Amharic Amharic language Amharic is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. It is the second most-spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic, and the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Thus, it has official status and is used nationwide. Amharic is also the official or working... |
Signed Amharic | |
| Arabic Arabic language Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book... |
Arabic Sign Language | Cued Speech (Arabic) |
| Bahasa Melayu | see Malay. | |
| Bengali Bengali language Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script... |
Cued Speech (Bengali) | |
| Belarusian Belarusian language The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people... |
Cued Speech (Belarusian) | |
| Chinese Chinese language The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages... |
see dialects below. | |
| - Cantonese | Cued Speech (Cantonese (Chinese)) | |
| - Mandarin | Wenfa Shouyu (Signed Mandarin (Taiwan)) | Cued Speech (Mandarin) |
| Catalan Catalan language Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island... |
Cued Speech (Catalan) | |
| Croatian Croatian language Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries... |
Cued Speech (Croatian-Serbian) | |
| Czech Czech language Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century... |
Cued Speech (Czech) | |
| Danish Danish language Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language... |
Signed Danish | Cued Speech (Danish) |
| Dutch Dutch language Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second... |
see dialects below. | Cued Speech (Dutch) |
| - Netherlandic Dutch | Nederlands met Gebaren, NmG ("Signed Dutch (Netherlands)"); Sign Supported Dutch | |
| - Belgian Dutch Flemish Flemish can refer to anything related to Flanders, and may refer directly to the following articles:*Flemish, an informal, though linguistically incorrect, name of any kind of the Dutch language as spoken in Belgium.... |
Vlaamse Gebarentaal, VGT ("Flemish Sign Language Flemish Sign Language Flemish Sign Language is the language used by signers in Flanders, which is the northern part of Belgium, a country in Western Europe... ") |
|
| English English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria... (see Manually Coded English Manually Coded English Manually Coded English is a general term used to describe a variety of visual communication methods expressed through the hands which attempt to represent the English language... ) |
The "Rochester Method" — (different manual alphabets are used in different regions). See also dialects below.. | |
| - American English American English American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States.... |
American Signed English; Seeing Essential English (SEE1); Signing Exact English Signing Exact English Signing Exact English is a system of manual communication that strives to be an exact representation of English vocabulary and grammar... (SEE2); Linguistics of Visual English (LOVE); Conceptually Accurate Signed English (CASE) |
Cued Speech (American English) |
| - Australian English Australian English Australian English is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language.... |
Australasian Signed English | Cued Speech (Australian English) |
| - British English British English British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere... |
British Signed English; Sign Supported Speech (SSS) or Sign Supported English (SSE) (speaking English with key-word signing); Paget Gorman Signed Speech (PGSS) | Cued Speech (British, Standard Southern) |
| - Hiberno-English Hiberno-English Hiberno-English is the dialect of English written and spoken in Ireland .English was first brought to Ireland during the Norman invasion of the late 12th century. Initially it was mainly spoken in an area known as the Pale around Dublin, with Irish spoken throughout the rest of the country... (Ireland) |
Signed English (Ireland) | |
| - Scottish English Scottish English Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not be considered distinct from the Scots language. It is always considered distinct from Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language.... |
Cued Speech (Scottish English) | |
| - South African English South African English The term South African English is applied to the first-language dialects of English spoken by South Africans, with the L1 English variety spoken by Zimbabweans, Zambians and Namibians, being recognised as offshoots.There is some social and regional variation within South African English... |
Cued Speech (South African English) | |
| - Trinidadian Creole and Tobagonian Creole | Cued Speech (Trinidad-Tobago (English)) | |
| Esperanto Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887... |
Signuno | |
| Filipino Filipino language This move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:... / Tagalog Tagalog language Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila... |
Cued Speech (Filipino-Tagalog) | |
| Finnish Finnish language Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a... |
Signed Finnish | Cued Speech (Finnish and Finnish-Swedish) |
| Flemish Flemish Flemish can refer to anything related to Flanders, and may refer directly to the following articles:*Flemish, an informal, though linguistically incorrect, name of any kind of the Dutch language as spoken in Belgium.... |
see Dutch (Belgium). | |
| French French language French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts... |
see dialects below. | |
| - Belgian French Belgian French Belgian French is the variety of French spoken mainly in the French Community of Belgium, alongside related minority regional languages such as Walloon, Picard, Champenois and Gaumais. The French spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi, which were formerly Belgian... |
Signed French (Belgium) | |
| - Canadian French Canadian French Canadian French is an umbrella term referring to the varieties of French spoken in Canada. French is the mother tongue of nearly seven million Canadians, a figure constituting roughly 22% of the national population. At the federal level it has co-official status alongside English... |
Signed French (Canada) | Cued Speech (French-Canadian) |
| - Standard French (France) | le Français Signé (Signed French, France) | Cued Speech (French) ("Langage parlé complété", LPC) |
| German German language German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union.... |
see dialects below. | |
| - Standard German | Signed German - Lautsprachbegleitende Gebärden or Lautbegleitende Gebärden (LBG, "Speech accompanied signs") | Cued Speech (German) (Phonembestimmes Manualsystem, "Phonemic Manual System") |
| - Swiss German Swiss German Swiss German is any of the Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland and in some Alpine communities in Northern Italy. Occasionally, the Alemannic dialects spoken in other countries are grouped together with Swiss German as well, especially the dialects of Liechtenstein and Austrian Vorarlberg... |
Cued Speech (Swiss German) | |
| Greek Greek language Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;... |
Cued Speech (Greek) | |
| Gujarati Gujarati language Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages... |
Cued Speech (Gujarati) | |
| Hawaiian Hawaiian language The Hawaiian language is a Polynesian language that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language of the state of Hawaii... |
Cued Speech (Hawaiian) | |
| Hebrew Hebrew language Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such... |
Signed Hebrew | Cued Speech |
| Hindi-Urdu Hindustani language Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta... |
Indian Signing System (ISS) (vocabulary taken from ISL, adapted for various Indian languages) | see dialects below. |
| - Hindi | Cued Speech (Hindi) | |
| - Urdu Urdu Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an... |
Signed Urdu | |
| Hungarian Hungarian language Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe.... |
Cued Speech (Hungarian) | |
| Igbo Igbo language Igbo , or Igbo proper, is a native language of the Igbo people, an ethnic group primarily located in southeastern Nigeria. There are approximately 20 million speakers that are mostly in Nigeria and are primarily of Igbo descent. Igbo is a national language of Nigeria. It is written in the Latin... |
Cued Speech (Igbo) | |
| Indonesian Indonesian language Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries.... |
Sistem Isyarat Bahasa Indonesia (SIBI, "Signed Indonesian") | Cued Speech (Indonesian) |
| Italian Italian language Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia... |
Italiano Segnato, "Signed Italian" | Cued Speech (Italian) |
| Japanese Japanese language is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an... |
Signed Japanese (also known as Manually Coded Japanese, Simultaneous Methodic Signs) | Cued Speech |
| Kituba (Kongo Kongo language The Kongo language, or Kikongo, is the Bantu language spoken by the Bakongo and Bandundu people living in the tropical forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo and Angola. It is a tonal language and formed the base for Kituba, a Bantu creole and lingua franca... -based creole) |
Cued Speech (Kiluba-Kituba) | |
| Korean Korean language Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing... |
Cued Speech (Korean) | |
| Lingala Lingala language Lingala, or Ngala, is a Bantu language spoken throughout the northwestern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a large part of the Republic of the Congo , as well as to some degree in Angola and the Central African Republic. It has over 10 million speakers... |
Cued Speech (Lingala) | |
| Luba-Katanga Luba-Katanga language Luba-Katanga, also known as Luba-Shaba and Kiluba, is one of two major Bantu language spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo called "Luba". It is spoken mostly in the south-east area of the country by the Luba people.... |
Cued Speech (Kiluba-Kituba) | |
| Malagasy Malagasy language Malagasy is the national language of Madagascar, a member of the Austronesian family of languages. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.-History:... |
Cued Speech (Malagasy) | |
| Malay Malay language Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore... |
Bahasa Malaysia Kod Tangan (BMKT) (Manually Coded Malay) | |
| Malayalam Malayalam language Malayalam , is one of the four major Dravidian languages of southern India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. It is spoken by 35.9 million people... |
Cued Speech (Malayalam) | |
| Mandarin | See Chinese. | |
| Marathi Marathi language Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most... |
Cued Speech | |
| Navajo Navajo language Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the... |
Cued Speech | |
| Norwegian Norwegian language Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language... |
Signed Norwegian | |
| Oriya Oriya language Oriya , officially Odia from November, 2011, is an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. It is mainly spoken in the Indian states of Orissa and West Bengal... |
Cued Speech | |
| Persian Persian language Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence... |
Baghcheban phonetic hand alphabet | |
| Polish Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries... |
System Językowo-Migowy (SJM) (Signed Polish); Signing Exact Polish | Cued Speech |
| Portuguese Portuguese language Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095... |
Signed Portuguese | see dialects below. |
| Cued Speech (Brazilian) | ||
| Cued Speech (European) | //www.dailycues.com/PFC/ (Português Falado Complementado) | |
| Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics... |
Signed Russian | |
| Serbian Serbian language Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries.... |
Cued Speech (Croatian-Serbian) | |
| Shona Shona language Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore... |
Cued Speech (Shona) | |
| Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the... |
Signed Spanish | Cued Speech (Spanish) (Método Oral Complementado, MOC) |
| Swahili Swahili language Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia... |
Cued Speech (Swahili) | |
| Swedish Swedish language Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish... |
Tecknad svenska, ("Signed Swedish"), developed in the 1970s but now largely out of use | Cued Speech (Swedish) |
| Telegu Telugu language Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu... |
Cued Speech (Telegu) | |
| Thai Thai language Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively... |
Cued Speech (Thai) | |
| Tshiluba Tshiluba language Luba-Kasai is a Bantu language spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it is a national language, along with Lingala, Swahili, and Kikongo. It is one of two major Congolese languages called "Luba"... |
Cued Speech (Tshiluba) | |
| Turkish Turkish language Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,... |
Cued Speech (Turkish) | |
| Urdu Urdu Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an... |
see Hindi-Urdu. | |
| Warlpiri Warlpiri language The Warlpiri language is spoken by about 3000 of the Warlpiri people in Australia's Northern Territory. It is one of the Ngarrkic languages of the large Southwest branch of the Pama–Nyungan family, and is one of the largest aboriginal languages in Australia in terms of number of speakers.-... (Australia) |
Warlpiri Sign Language Warlpiri Sign Language Warlpiri Sign Language is a sign language used by the Warlpiri, an Aboriginal community in the central desert region of Australia. It is one of the most elaborate, and certainly the most studied, of all Australian Aboriginal sign languages.-Social context:... |
See also
- Contact signContact SignA contact sign language, or contact sign, is a variety or style of language that arises from contact between a deaf sign language and a spoken language...
— A variety or style of signing arising from contact between a spoken or manually coded language and a deaf sign language. - Manual alphabet — a means of representing the written alphabet of a spoken language, but often a central part of natural sign languages.
- Manually Coded EnglishManually Coded EnglishManually Coded English is a general term used to describe a variety of visual communication methods expressed through the hands which attempt to represent the English language...
- MakatonMakatonMakaton is a language programme designed to provide a means of communication to individuals who cannot communicate efficiently by speaking. Makaton has been effectively used with individuals who have cognitive impairments, autism, Down's syndrome, specific language impairment, multisensory...