What Is Sign Language?

Worldwide, more than 350 million people are severely hard of hearing or deaf. In Germany, the figure is approximately 80,000. If we include everyone with hearing loss, the total is estimated to be more than one billion people.

Sign language exists so that deaf and hard-of-hearing people can communicate with one another and with the hearing world. Below, you can find out more about this language, its history, regional variations and how it works. We also have a few interesting tips for anyone who would like to learn sign language.

What is sign language?

Sign language is a visual language. It uses signs - that is, movements of the body, particularly of the arms and hands, gestures and facial expressions, body posture and mouth shape - to convey information, sentences and words, and to express feelings and imitations. It is often referred to colloquially as “sign language”.

Like any other natural language, it has its own grammar and rules. Individual words also have individual signs.

There are approximately 300 different sign languages worldwide.

Who needs sign language?

Sign language helps deaf people to communicate with one another. But relatives, family and friends also benefit from knowing sign language, as it enables them to communicate with their loved ones. Sign language is therefore particularly important for parents of deaf children, or children of deaf parents, as it helps build an emotional bond and better supports the child’s development, etc.

Furthermore, knowledge of sign language is essential in numerous public sectors and professions. These include, for example, educators and teachers, sign language interpreters, healthcare professionals such as doctors and nurses, and many other groups of people who live, work and communicate with deaf people.

The history of sign language

The history of sign language dates back to ancient times. The works of the Greek philosopher Plato and the Roman bishop Augustine of Hippo contain the earliest references to deaf people using sign language.

Over the centuries, various sign languages and finger alphabets developed around the world, originally in monasteries, so that monks could communicate despite their vow of silence. In the 17th century, these finger alphabets were also used to teach the first deaf people.

After the first school for the deaf was founded in France in the 18th century, where lessons were taught using sign language, sign language was banned again in Europe at the end of the 19th century at the so-called Milan Congress. Instead, pupils were to be taught to speak.

Hard to believe: this ban remained in place to some extent until the 1980s. In France, sign language was still banned for deaf children in schools until 1991. Fortunately, sign language has now established itself as a fully-fledged language.

At an international conference on the education of the deaf held in Canada in 2010, an official apology was issued for the ban imposed by the Milan Congress, and the consequences this ban had for deaf people were officially acknowledged.

Is sign language the same in all countries?

There is no single sign language; rather, there are around 300 different sign languages across the world. Just like the spoken languages of each linguistic community, these different languages differ in their vocabulary, as well as in their grammar and syntax, i.e. sentence structure. They are in turn divided into different sign language families. For example, alongside German Sign Language (DGS), there is British Sign Language (BSL) in the United Kingdom, American Sign Language (ASL) in the USA, and Japanese Sign Language (JSL) in Japan. Other sign language families include, for example, the Spanish sign languages, the Arabic sign languages and the Chinese sign languages.

Although there is also a sign language called International Sign, i.e. an international form, this is a so-called pidgin language, meaning a reduced language. It is used by deaf people to communicate at international meetings.

German Sign Language

German Sign Language (DGS) is used by around 250,000 deaf and hard-of-hearing people in Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, in some cases even as their first language.

The vocabulary of German Sign Language comprises approximately 19,000 words, which differ from spoken language. For example, there are no articles in DGS such as ‘der’, ‘die’ or ‘das’. Nor are there any verb tenses. In DGS, these are expressed using temporal adverbs and contextual information, for example with specific signs for “yesterday”, “today” or “tomorrow”.

According to the Disability Equality Act (BGG), Section 6.1, German Sign Language is “recognised as an independent language.” Source: Section 6 of the German Disability Equality Act

Regional differences in DGS

Germany does not have a standardised sign language. Just as in spoken language, there are regional differences in German Sign Language in the sense of dialects, as well as a youth slang. The grammar is the same, but the signs differ or have different meanings.

This means that misunderstandings can quickly arise in sign language communication too, for example when a Bavarian and a Saxon are talking.

What is the German Finger Alphabet?

The German finger alphabet is not to be equated with German Sign Language. Rather, it is part of it, as it is used in sign language communication to spell out individual words, such as proper nouns or foreign words, which do not have their own signs. For this reason, a specific sign is assigned to each letter of the alphabet as well as to the numbers from 1 to 10. The umlauts, “ß” and “sch”, also have their own signs.

The German finger alphabet is a one-handed finger alphabet, meaning that each sign can be formed using just one hand. The letters are usually shown in front of the chest using the right hand, or the left hand for left-handers.

Where can you learn sign language?

Anyone wishing to learn German Sign Language will find various courses offered by different institutions. These include, for example

• Deaf associations or organisations
• Schools for the deaf and sign language schools
• Adult education centres (VHS)
• Universities and universities of applied sciences

Here you will find sign language courses for beginners and advanced learners, study groups or parent-child courses. Further information is usually available on the respective website.

There are also various online sign language courses and platforms, numerous learning videos, sign language dictionaries and sign language apps available on the internet that can support or facilitate the learning of sign language.

It can also be helpful for learners to watch various television programmes with additional sign language translation. You can find out more about this below.

Sign language on television

Information should be equally accessible to everyone. However, deaf people often face particular difficulties in this regard, for example when watching television.

More and more TV channels are therefore now supporting “accessible television” and offering accessible programming, for example for news programmes.

In addition to subtitles and clear-speech settings for people with hearing impairments, public broadcasters in particular offer sign language translations: visual representations of the spoken content by sign language interpreters, which are either recorded or translated live into sign language depending on the programme or broadcast. The interpreters are usually shown in a small window at the edge of the screen, whilst the programme is shown on the main screen.

Sign language apps

Thanks to technological advances in recent years, there are now various apps available that can make life easier for people who are hard of hearing or deaf. These include, for example, volume and hearing amplifier apps, transcription apps and sign language apps. Sign language apps, for instance, help with learning or translating sign language.

Learning sign language: Tips for relatives of deaf people

Anyone wishing to learn a new language should be prepared to exercise patience and perseverance. This also applies to sign language. However, the following tips may help you:

• Learn from professionals: Sign language courses at adult education centres or through deaf associations, as well as professional online courses, are the best way to learn sign language.
  
• Use supportive tools: With the help of dictionaries, videos and apps, you can further support your learning or even teach yourself sign language.
  
• Speak: The best way to learn a language is to speak it. The same applies to sign language: the more you use it, the better and more confident you will become.
  
• Stay on the ball: Learning a new language can be hard work and involve a lot of studying. But if you keep at it, you’ll gradually start to see progress. It’s a great feeling.
  
• Watch TV with sign language interpretation: Why not try watching the news or a sports event with sign language interpretation? You can learn a lot this way and are sure to expand your vocabulary.