Editing British Sign Language (section)

== Linguistics ==
[[Linguistics]] is the study of language, including those like BSL that are not carried by sound.<ref name=":04">{{Cite book|title=The Linguistics of British Sign Language|last=Sutton-Spence|first=Rachel|publisher=Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge|year=1999|location=University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom}}</ref> In all sign languages the great majority of 'words' (hand gestures) cannot be understood in other sign languages.<ref name=":04" /> How one language signs a certain number would be different from how another language signs it.<ref name=":04" /> The way sentences are constructed (syntax) differs from sign language to sign language, just as with different spoken languages. British Sign Language is described as a 'spatial language' as it "moves signs in space".<ref name=":04" />

=== Phonology ===
Like many other [[sign language]]s, BSL [[phonology]] is defined by elements such as handshape, orientation, location, movement, and non-manual features. There are phonological components to sign language that have no meaning alone but work together to create a meaning of a signed word: hand shape, movement, location, orientation and facial expression.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Morgan|first=Gary|date=October 2006|title='Children Are Just Lingual': The Development of Phonology in British Sign Language (BSL).|journal=Lingua|volume=116|issue=10|pages=1507–1523|doi=10.1016/j.lingua.2005.07.010|url=http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/364/2/Children_are_just_lingual.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180719180024/http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/364/2/Children_are_just_lingual.pdf |archive-date=2018-07-19 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":04"/> The meanings of words differ if one of these components is changed.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":04"/> Signs can be identical in certain components but different in others, giving each a different meaning.<ref name=":04"/> Facial expression falls under the [[nonmanual feature]] component of phonology.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=McArthur|first=Tom|date=January 2018|title=British Sign Language|url=http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199661282.001.0001/acref-9780199661282-e-1344|journal=The Oxford Companion to the English Language|doi=10.1093/acref/9780199661282.001.0001|isbn=9780199661282|url-access=subscription}}</ref> These include "eyebrow height, eye gaze, mouthing, head movement, and torso rotation."<ref name=":2" />

=== Grammar ===
In common with other languages, whether spoken or signed, BSL has its own [[grammar]] which govern how phrases are signed.<ref name=":04"/> BSL has a particular [[syntax]].<ref name=":04"/> One important component of BSL is its use of [[Pro-form|proforms]].<ref name=":04"/> A proform is "...any form that stands in the place of, or does the job of, some other form."<ref name=":04"/> Sentences are composed of two parts, in order: the subject and the predicate.<ref name=":04"/> The subject is the topic of the sentence, while the predicate is the commentary about the subject.<ref name=":04"/> Question words are generally at the end of a sentence.<ref>{{Cite web |last=BSL |first=Access |date=2023-06-11 |title=How Do You Ask Questions in British Sign Language (BSL)? - Access BSL |url=https://accessbsl.com/how-to-sign-questions-in-british-sign-language/ |access-date=2023-11-15 |language=en-GB}}</ref>

BSL uses a [[topic–comment]] structure.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cohearentvision.org.uk/deaf-users/grammatical-structure-of-british-sign-language/|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130423190807/http://www.cohearentvision.org.uk/deaf-users/grammatical-structure-of-british-sign-language/|url-status=dead|title=Grammatical Structure of British Sign Language · coHearentVision|date=23 April 2013|archive-date=23 April 2013|website=archive.is}}</ref> Topic-comment means that the topic of the signed conversation is first established, followed by an elaboration of the topic, being the 'comment' component.<ref name=":04"/> The canonical word order outside of the topic–comment structure is [[object–subject–verb]] (OSV), and noun phrases are head-initial.<ref name="google">{{cite book|title=The Linguistics of British Sign Language: An Introduction|author1=Sutton-Spence, R.|author2=Woll, B.|date=1999|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521637183|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lUsCbazTICIC|access-date=7 December 2014}}</ref>

=== Relationships with other sign languages ===
[[File:Cynhadledd_i'r_Wasg_Press_Conference_-_20.11.20.webm|start=40:30|end=43:28|thumb|[[Welsh Government]] daily [[COVID-19 pandemic in Wales|COVID-19]] press conference in November 2020; Welsh and English instantaneous signing]]
Although the United Kingdom and the United States share [[English language|English]] as the predominant [[spoken language]], British Sign Language is quite distinct from [[American Sign Language]] (ASL), having only 31% signs identical, or 44% cognate.<ref>McKee, D. & G. Kennedy (2000). Lexical Comparison of Signs from American, Australian, British, and New Zealand Sign Languages. In K. Emmorey and H. Lane (Eds), "The signs of language revisited: an anthology to honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima". Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.</ref> BSL is also distinct from [[Irish Sign Language]] (ISL) (ISG in the [[International Organization for Standardization|ISO]] system), which is more closely related to [[French Sign Language]] (LSF) and ASL.

It is also distinct from [[Signed English]], a manually coded method expressed to represent the [[English language]].

The sign languages used in Australia and New Zealand, [[Auslan]] and [[New Zealand Sign Language]] respectively, evolved largely from 19th century BSL, and all retain the same manual alphabet and grammar and possess similar lexicons. These three languages may technically be considered dialects of a single language ([[BANZSL]]) due to their use of the same grammar and manual alphabet and the high degree of lexical sharing (overlap of signs). The term BANZSL was coined by [[Trevor Johnston]]<ref>Johnston, T. (2002). BSL, Auslan and NZSL: Three sign languages or one? In A. Baker, B. van den Bogaerde & O. Crasborn (Eds.), "Cross-linguistic perspectives in sign language research: Selected papers from TISLR 2000" (pp. 47-69). Hamburg: Signum Verlag.</ref> and Adam Schembri.

In Australia deaf schools were established by educated deaf people from London, Edinburgh and Dublin. This introduced the London and Edinburgh dialects of BSL to Melbourne and Sydney respectively and Irish Sign Language to Sydney in Roman Catholic schools for the deaf. The language contact post-secondary education between Australian ISL users and 'Australian BSL' users accounts for some of the dialectal differences we see between modern BSL and Auslan. Tertiary education in the US for some deaf Australian adults also accounts for some ASL borrowings found in modern Auslan.

Auslan, BSL and NZSL have 82% of signs identical (using concepts from a [[Swadesh list]]). When considering similar or related signs as well as identical, they are 98% cognate. Further information will be available after completion of the BSL corpus,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://bslcorpusproject.org.temp.link/|title=Home|website=BSL Corpus Project}}</ref> allows for comparison with the Auslan corpus,<ref>[http://www.auslan.org.au/about/corpus/ Auslan corpus]</ref> and the New Zealand Sign Language project.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/research/deafstudies/DSRU%20site/NZSL%20variation/variation%20project.aspx|title=School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies &#124; Victoria University of Wellington|access-date=26 July 2017|archive-date=24 December 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081224104404/http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/research/deafstudies/DSRU%20site/NZSL%20variation/variation%20project.aspx|url-status=bot: unknown}}</ref> There continues to be language contact between BSL, Auslan and NZSL through migration (deaf people and interpreters), the media (television programmes such as See Hear, Switch, Rush and SignPost are often recorded and shared informally in all three countries) and conferences (in 1999 many deaf British people travelled to Australia for the World Federation of the Deaf Conference, WFD, in Brisbane.)

[[Makaton]], a communication system for people with cognitive impairments or other communication difficulties, was originally developed with signs borrowed from British Sign Language. The sign language used in [[Sri Lanka]] is also closely related to BSL despite the oral language not being English, demonstrating variation in distance between sign languages and spoken ones.{{cn|date=May 2025}}