Editing British Sign Language (section)

===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}}