Editing British Sign Language (section)

==History==
===Origin===
BSL is a creation of the British Deaf community. Unlike [[home sign]], which does not pass between generations, sign languages are shared by a large community of signers.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-08-07 |title=The Beginnings |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/british-sign-language-history/beginnings |access-date=2021-05-17 |website=History of British Sign Language |publisher=[[University College London]] |language=en}}</ref>

Records show the existence of a sign language within deaf communities in England as far back as the 15th century. The ''History of the Syon Monastery at Lisbon and Brentford'', published in 1450, contains descriptions of signs—some of which are still in use.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-08-07 |title=BSL Timeline |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/british-sign-language-history/bsl-timeline |access-date=2021-05-17 |website=History of British Sign Language |publisher=[[University College London]] |language=en }}</ref> The earliest known document describing the use of signing in a legal context mentions John de Orleton, a deaf man assigning his property to a family member in 1324.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Leahy, Anne |date=2015 |title= Research brief: Origins of Legal Interpreting Before 1700 |journal=British Deaf History Journal |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=34–37}}</ref> Another commonly cited event is the marriage ceremony between Thomas Tilsye and Ursula Russel in 1576.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-08-07 |title=Marriage Certificate of Thomas Tillsye |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/british-sign-language-history/beginnings/marriage-certificate-thomas-tillsye |access-date=2021-05-17 |website=History of British Sign Language |publisher=[[University College London]] |language=en }}</ref>

[[Richard Carew (antiquary)|Richard Carew]]'s ''Survey of Cornwall'' (1602) includes a vivid description of Edward Bone, a deaf servant, meeting his deaf friend Kempe. Bone had some knowledge of [[Cornish language|Cornish]] and was able to lipread, but appeared to prefer signing. Carew described the situation thus:<blockquote>Somewhat neerre the place of his [Bone's] birth, there dwelt another, so affected, or rather defected, whose name was Kempe: which two, when they chaunced to meete, would use such kinde embracements, such stranfe, often, and earnest tokenings, and such heartie laughtes, and other passionate gestures, that their want of a tongue, seemed rather a hindrance to other conceiving [understanding] them, then to their conceiving one another.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=2019-08-07 |title=Richard Carew's Survey of Cornwall |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/british-sign-language-history/beginnings/richard-carews-survey-cornwall |access-date=2021-05-17 |website=History of British Sign Language |publisher=[[University College London]] |language=en }}</ref></blockquote>[[John Bulwer]], who had an adopted deaf daughter Chirothea Johnson, authored four late-Renaissance texts related to deafness, sign language and the human body: ''Chirologia'' (1644), ''Philocopus'' (1648), ''Pathomyotamia'' (1649) and ''Anthropometamorphosis'' (1650).<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=John Bulwer, English physician, author, and educator |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Bulwer |access-date=2021-05-17 |website=[[Encyclopedia Britannica]] |language=en }}</ref> In particular, ''Chirologia'' focuses on the meanings of gestures, expressions and body language, and describes signs and gestures in use at the time, some of which resemble signs still in use,<ref name=":0" /> while ''Philocopus'' explores the use of lipreading by deaf people and the possibility of deaf education,<ref name=":3" /> and is dedicated to Bulwer's two deaf brothers.<ref name=":0" />

Another writer of the same time, [[George Dalgarno]], recognised that sign language was unrelated to English. In 1661 he wrote that "The deaf man has no teacher at all and through necessity may put him upon... using signs, yet those have no affinity to the language by which they that are about him do converse among themselves."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-08-07 |title=George Dalgarno |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/british-sign-language-history/beginnings/george-dalgarno |access-date=2021-05-17 |website=History of British Sign Language |publisher=[[University College London]] |language=en }}</ref>

Finally, the diarist [[Samuel Pepys]] described a conversation between George Downing and a deaf boy in November 1666:<blockquote>But, above all, there comes in the dumb boy that I knew in Oliver's time, who is mightily acquainted here, and with Downing; and he made strange signs of the fire, and how the King was abroad, and many things they understood, but I could not...<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-08-07 |title=Samuel Pepys diary extract |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/british-sign-language-history/beginnings/samuel-pepys-diary-extract |access-date=2021-05-17 |website=History of British Sign Language |publisher=[[University College London]] |language=en }}</ref></blockquote>British Sign Language has evolved, as all languages do, from these origins by modification, invention and importation.<ref>[http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/web/news/reportsandpublications/magazine/magazinearchive/SPAArchive/SPAJune06/Feature6June06.htm Deaf people and linguistic research] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604000057/http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/web/News/ReportsandPublications/Magazine/MagazineArchive/SPAArchive/SPAJune06/Feature6June06.htm|date=2011-06-04}}, Professor [[Bencie Woll]], Director of the Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre based at University College London. British Science Association. Accessed October 2010.</ref><ref>Kyle & Woll (1985).''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Gcy4MhmLhdkC Sign Language: the study of deaf people and their language]'' Cambridge University Press, p. 263</ref>

{{BANZSL family tree}}

===Early deaf education===
==== The Braidwood schools ====
[[Thomas Braidwood]], a teacher from Edinburgh, founded 'Braidwood's Academy for the Deaf and Dumb' in 1760, which is believed to be the first school for deaf children in Britain.<ref>{{Cite web|last=UCL|date=2019-08-07|title=Thomas Braidwood, The Braidwood School|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/british-sign-language-history/early-deaf-education/thomas-braidwood-braidwood-school|access-date=2021-05-17|website=History of British Sign Language|language=en}}</ref> The school primarily taught oral communication methods, as described by Francis Green—whose son attended the Braidwood school<ref>{{Cite web|title=Biography – GREEN, FRANCIS – Volume V (1801-1820) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography|url=http://biographi.ca/en/bio/green_francis_5E.html|access-date=2021-05-17|website=biographi.ca}}</ref>—in the anonymous treatise ''Vox oculis subjecta.''<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Green|first1=Francis|url=https://archive.org/details/b2199576x|title="Vox oculis subjecta;" a dissertation on the most curious and important art of imparting speech, and the knowledge of language, to the naturally deaf, and (consequently) dumb; with a particular account of the academy of Messrs. Braidwood of Edinburgh, ...|last2=Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh|date=1783|publisher=London : sold by Benjamin White|others=Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh}}</ref> In this account, Green describes how his son Charles would surely develop "a perfect acquaintance with language both oral and written", and how deaf pupils were given "a tolerable general understanding of their own language [English] so as to read, write, and speak it, with ease". Green also describes Braidwood's views of spoken language:<blockquote>Mr Braidwood hath frequently intimated to me, as an opinion founded upon his experience in this art, that articulate or spoken language hath so great and essential a tendency to confirm and enlarge ideas, above the power of written language, that it is almost impossible for deaf persons, without the use of speech, to be perfect in their ideas.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Green|first1=Francis|url=https://archive.org/details/b2199576x|title="Vox oculis subjecta;" a dissertation on the most curious and important art of imparting speech, and the knowledge of language, to the naturally deaf, and (consequently) dumb; with a particular account of the academy of Messrs. Braidwood of Edinburgh, ...|last2=Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh|date=1783|publisher=London : sold by Benjamin White|others=Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh|pages=167}}</ref></blockquote>[[Joseph Watson (teacher)|Joseph Watson]] was trained as a teacher of the deaf under Thomas Braidwood. He eventually left in 1792 to become the headmaster of the [[Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb]] in [[Bermondsey]]. He described his teaching methods in detail in his book, ''On the Education of the Deaf and Dumb'' (1809), where he opposed the use of signed versions of spoken language such as the Signed French used in the Paris school. The book contains lists of vocabulary and plates designed to encourage a child to acquire an understanding of written and spoken language.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|last=UCL|date=2019-08-07|title=Joseph Watson, Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/british-sign-language-history/early-deaf-education/joseph-watson-asylum-deaf-and-dumb|access-date=2021-05-17|website=History of British Sign Language|language=en}}</ref>

==== International links ====
Although the Braidwood school focused on speech, it also used an early form of sign language, ''the combined system'', which was the first codification of British Sign Language. The Braidwood school later moved to London and was visited by [[Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard|Abbé Sicard]] and [[Laurent Clerc]] in 1815, at the same time that an American Protestant minister, [[Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet]], travelled to Europe to research teaching of deaf people.<ref name=":4" />

[[André-Daniel Laffon de Ladebat]], one of the French visitors to the Braidwood school, provided a vivid description of Laurent Clerc's meeting with the deaf children in the bilingual English/French book, ''A collection of the Most Remarkable Definitions and Answers of Massieu and Clerc, Deaf and Dumb.'' Laurent Clerc, who was deaf, was overjoyed to find fellow sign language users:<blockquote>As soon as Clerc beheld this sight [of the children at dinner] his face became animated; he was as agitated as a traveller of sensibility would be on meeting all of a sudden in distant regions, a colony of his own countrymen... Clerc approached them. He made signs and they answered him by signs. The unexpected communication cause a most delicious sensation in them and for us was a scene of expression and sensibility that gave us the most heart-felt satisfaction.<ref>{{Cite web|last=UCL|date=2019-08-07|title=Laffon de Ladebat|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/british-sign-language-history/early-deaf-education/laffon-de-ladebat|access-date=2021-05-17|website=History of British Sign Language|language=en}}</ref></blockquote>The Braidwood schools refused to teach Gallaudet their methods. Gallaudet then travelled to Paris and learned the educational methods of the French Royal Institution for the Deaf, a combination of [[Old French Sign Language]] and the signs developed by [[Charles-Michel de l'Épée|Abbé de l'Épée]]. As a consequence [[American sign language|American Sign Language]] (ASL) today has a 60% similarity to modern [[French Sign Language]] and is almost unintelligible to users of British Sign Language. Gallaudet went on to establish the [[American School for the Deaf]] in 1817, which focused on manual communication and ASL, in contrast to the oral methods used in the UK.

=== Late 19th – 21st century ===
Until the 1940s, sign language skills were passed between deaf people without a unified sign language system; many deaf people lived in residential institutions. Signing was actively discouraged in schools by punishment, and deaf education emphasised teaching deaf children to learn to [[lip reading|lip read]] and [[Fingerspelling|finger spell]], due to the prevailing belief across Europe established in the 1950s that signing was bad. From the 1970s there has been an increasing tolerance and instruction in BSL in schools. The language continues to evolve as older signs such as ''alms'' and ''pawnbroker'' have fallen out of use and new signs such as ''internet'' and ''laser'' have been coined. The evolution of the language and its changing level of acceptance meant that older users tend to use more finger spelling while younger ones make use of a wider range of signs.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Gcy4MhmLhdkC Sign Language: The Study of Deaf People and Their Language], J. G. Kyle, B. Woll, G. Pullen, F. Maddix, Cambridge University Press, 1988. {{ISBN|0521357179}}
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[[Paddy Ladd]] initiated deaf programming on [[United Kingdom|British]] television in the 1980s and is credited with getting sign language on television and enabling deaf children to be educated in sign.<ref>{{cite news | first=Raekha | last=Prasad | title=Sound and Fury | date=2003-03-19 | url=https://www.theguardian.com/society/2003/mar/19/guardiansocietysupplement5 | work=Guardian Unlimited | access-date=2008-01-30 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140910210203/http://www.theguardian.com/society/2003/mar/19/guardiansocietysupplement5 | archive-date=2014-09-10 }}</ref>

BSL users campaigned [[Legal recognition of sign languages|to have BSL recognised]] on an official level. [[Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984]] mandates the provision of interpreters. On 18 March 2003 the UK government formally recognised that BSL is a language in its own right.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/library-rnid/2013/11/13/official-recognition-of-british-sign-language-1987-2003/ |title=Official recognition of British Sign Language 1987-2003 – suggested reading &#124; UCL UCL Ear Institute & Action on Hearing Loss Libraries |publisher=Blogs.ucl.ac.uk |access-date=2015-03-03}}</ref><ref>"Time to break the barriers". ''Chad'', 25 September 2013, p.21. Accessed 28 January 2022</ref> In 2021, [[Rosie Cooper]] introduced the British Sign Language Bill to recognise BSL as an official language, which was backed by the government.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/2915|title=British Sign Language Bill|publisher=UK Parliament|access-date=2022-02-05}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-backs-vital-british-sign-language-bill|title=Government backs vital British Sign Language Bill|publisher=UK Government|access-date=2022-02-05}}</ref> After being dormant from June 2021, the bill began moving through Parliament on 28 January 2022, but during a meeting with stakeholders on 7 February, the language of the bill was revealed to have been pared down substantially, disappointing said stakeholders. The British Deaf Association stated that it was 'unhappy' with this removal of language from the bill.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://limpingchicken.com/2022/02/08/bsl-act-now-british-sign-language-bill-discussion-reveals-uk-government-changes/|title = BSL Act Now: British Sign Language Bill discussion reveals UK Government changes|date = 8 February 2022}}</ref>