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Sign
language (also signed language) is a
language which uses
manual communication, body language and lip patterns instead of
sound
to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and
movement of the hands,
arms or
body, and facial expressions to
express fluidly a speaker's thoughts. Sign languages commonly develop
in deaf communities, which can include interpreters and friends
and families of deaf people as well as people who are deaf
or hard of hearing themselves.
Wherever
communities of deaf people exist, sign languages develop. In fact, their complex
spatial grammars are markedly different from the grammars of spoken languages.
Hundreds of sign languages are in use around the world and are at the cores of
local Deaf cultures. Some sign
languages have obtained some form of legal recognition,
while others have no status at all. In
addition to sign languages, various signed codes of spoken languages have been
developed, such as Signed English and Warlpiri Sign Language.
These are not to be confused with languages, oral or signed; a signed code of an
oral language is simply a signed mode of the language it carries, just as a
writing system is a written mode. Signed codes of oral languages can be useful
for learning oral languages or for expressing and discussing literal quotations
from those languages, but they are generally too awkward and unwieldy for normal
discourse. For example, a teacher and deaf student of English in the United
States might use Signed English to cite examples of English usage, but the
discussion of those examples would be in American Sign Language.
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