German Sign Language

German Sign Language or Deutsche Gebärdensprache (DGS) is the sign language of the deaf community in Germany and in the German-speaking community of Belgium. It is unclear how many use German Sign Language as their main language; Gallaudet University estimated 50,000 as of 1986.The language has evolved through use in deaf communities over hundreds of years. German Sign Language or Deutsche Gebärdensprache (DGS) is the sign language of the deaf community in Germany and in the German-speaking community of Belgium. It is unclear how many use German Sign Language as their main language; Gallaudet University estimated 50,000 as of 1986.The language has evolved through use in deaf communities over hundreds of years. Germany has a strong oralist tradition and historically has seen a suppression of sign language. German Sign Language was first legally recognised in The Federal Disability Equality Act (2002) in May 2002. Since then, deaf people have a legal entitlement to Sign Language interpreters when communicating with federal authorities, free of charge. Very few television programs include an interpreter; those that do are the news and a news 'round-up'. There is at least one programme conducted entirely in German Sign Language called 'Sehen statt Hören' (Seeing Instead of Hearing), a documentary-style programme produced by the Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) and broadcast on Saturday mornings on Bayerischer Rundfunk and the other regional state broadcasters in Germany. German Sign Language is unrelated to spoken German. While spoken German builds sentences following a subject – verb – object pattern, German Sign Language uses a subject object verb strategy. Thus, the two have very different grammars, though as the dominant language of the region, German has had some influence on German Sign Language. A signed system that follows German grammar, Signed German (Lautsprachbegleitende Gebärden or Lautbegleitende Gebärden, 'sound-accompanying signs'), is used in education. It is not used as a natural means of communication between deaf people. Another system of manually representing German is cued speech, known as Phonembestimmes Manualsystem (Phonemic Manual System). German Sign Language uses a one-handed manual alphabet ('Fingeralphabet' in German) derived from the French manual alphabet of the 18th century; it is related to manual alphabets used across Europe and in North America. Regional variants of German Sign Language include Hamburg, Berlin, and Munich sign. Sign languages of regions in the former East Germany have a greater divergence from sign languages of the western regions; some may be unrelated. Polish Sign Language is descended from German Sign Language. Israeli Sign Language may be as well, as it evolved from the sign language used by German Jewish teachers who opened a school for deaf children in Jerusalem in 1932, and still shows some resemblance to its German counterpart. It is not related to Austrian Sign Language, which is used in parts of southern Germany, nor to Swiss Sign Language, both of which are part of the French Sign Language family, though they have had some influence from German Sign Language. Everyday users of German Sign Language use no written form of the language. In academic contexts, German Sign Language is usually described with the Hamburg notation system or HamNoSys. SignWriting also has its adherents in Germany. The grammar of German Sign Language may be described in terms of the conventional linguistic categories phonology, morphology, morphosyntax and syntax. Signs are made up of a combination of different elements from each of the classes of distinctive features: handshape, hand orientation, location and movement. If one of these elements is changed, it can result in a sign with a completely different meaning. Two signs differing in only one element are deemed to be a minimal pair. German Sign Language uses 32 handshapes, of which six are basic handshapes found in all sign languages.