Knowra British Sign Language British Sign Language British Sign Language (BSL) is a natural language used by Deaf communities in the United Kingdom. It has its own grammar and vocabulary, distinct from spoken English.
Sign language : A natural language that uses visual-manual forms, including hand movements and facial expression, rather than speech as its primary medium. BSL belongs to this language family, but is not a signed version of English.
Signed English : A system that uses signs alongside English word order and grammatical structure. Unlike BSL, Signed English represents English rather than functioning as an independent language.
Old Kent Road Deaf School : A school for deaf children established in London in the eighteenth century, associated with early British Deaf education. Its community helped shape forms of signing that contributed to the history of BSL.
Mary Brennan : A British linguist whose research helped establish sign languages as structured languages rather than collections of gestures. Her work advanced linguistic study of BSL and its grammar.
BSL Act 2022 : A UK law recognizing British Sign Language as a language of England, Wales, and Scotland and requiring reporting on its use across government. The Act gave BSL formal statutory recognition in Great Britain.
Phonology : The study of how a language organizes speech sounds or, in signed languages, contrastive visual forms. BSL signs are built from contrastive features that function like phonological units.
American Sign Language : A natural sign language used in Deaf communities in the United States and parts of Canada. ASL and BSL developed separately and are not mutually intelligible simply because both use signs.
Thomas Braidwood : A Scottish educator who founded a school for deaf pupils in Edinburgh in 1760. Braidwood's teaching community was an early setting for the development of British signing.
Dorothy Miles : A Deaf British poet and performer who created and presented work in sign language. Her poetry demonstrated BSL's expressive and artistic possibilities.
Deaf culture : The shared languages, traditions, values, and social experiences of Deaf communities. BSL is a central means of communication and cultural belonging in British Deaf communities.
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