![]() This alphabet was based, in whole or in part, on the simple hand gestures used by monks living in silence. Spanish monk Pedro Ponce de León (1520–1584) developed the first manual alphabet. These records include the accounts of Cabeza de Vaca in 1527 and Coronado in 1541. The earliest records of contact between Europeans and Indigenous peoples of the Gulf Coast region in what is now Texas and northern Mexico note a fully formed sign language already in use by the time of the Europeans' arrival there. Debate around the monastic sign-language developed in the Middle Ages has come to regard it as a gestural system rather than a true sign language. One of the earliest written records of a sign language is from the fifth century B.C., in Plato's Cratylus, where Socrates says: "If we hadn't a voice or a tongue, and wanted to express things to one another, wouldn't we try to make signs by moving our hands, head, and the rest of our body, just as dumb people do at present?" Until the 19th century, most of what is known about historical sign languages is limited to the manual alphabets (fingerspelling systems) that were invented to facilitate the transfer of words from a spoken language to a sign language, rather than documentation of the language itself. Groups of deaf people have used sign languages throughout history. Main article: History of sign language Juan Pablo Bonet, Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos ("Reduction of letters and art for teaching mute people to speak") (Madrid, 1620) Linguists distinguish natural sign languages from other systems that are precursors to them or obtained from them, such as constructed manual codes for spoken languages, home sign, " baby sign", and signs learned by non-human primates. Some sign languages have obtained some form of legal recognition. As of 2021, Indo-Pakistani Sign Language is the most used sign language in the world, and Ethnologue ranks it as the 151st most "spoken" language in the world. ![]() ![]() The 2021 edition of Ethnologue lists 150 sign languages, while the SIGN-HUB Atlas of Sign Language Structures lists over 200 and notes that there are more that have not been documented or discovered yet. Each country generally has its own native sign language some have more than one. The number of sign languages worldwide is not precisely known. Although signing is used primarily by the deaf and hard of hearing, it is also used by hearing individuals, such as those unable to physically speak, those who have trouble with oral language due to a disability or condition ( augmentative and alternative communication), and those with deaf family members including children of deaf adults. Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages have developed as useful means of communication and form the core of local deaf cultures. Sign language should not be confused with body language, a type of nonverbal communication. This is supported by the fact that there is substantial overlap between the neural substrates of sign and spoken language processing, despite the obvious differences in modality. Linguists consider both spoken and signed communication to be types of natural language, meaning that both emerged through an abstract, protracted aging process and evolved over time without meticulous planning. Sign languages are not universal and are usually not mutually intelligible, although there are also similarities among different sign languages. Sign languages are full-fledged natural languages with their own grammar and lexicon. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Two men and a woman signing American Sign Language (2008) Preservation of the Sign Language, George W. For signed versions of spoken languages, see manually coded language. This article is about primary sign languages of the deaf.
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