Manually coded language
Manually Coded Languages (MCLs) are representations of spoken languages in a gestural-visual form; that is, "sign language" versions of spoken langauges. They are not the natural languages of Deaf communities, which are often hundreds of years old; MCLs were invented by hearing educators of the deaf.
There are many forms of Manually Coded Languages, the oldest known being the manual alphabets used in the middle ages (and possibly earlier) in Europe, which encoded a different hand sign for each letter of the Latin alphabet. Modern MCLs can be traced to the Abbé de l'Épée in 18th century France, but the real proliferation of such systems occurred in the latter half of the 20th century. Many of these systems ("Signed English", "Signed German" and so on) share the approach of taking signs ("lexicon") from the deaf community sign language, adding specially-created signs (often using "initialisations"), and building them into a representation of the spoken language. Thus "Signed English" in America (based on ASL) has a lexicon quite different to "Signed English" in the UK (based on BSL).
Another system that has been adapted for many languages is Cued Speech, which is more of a manual supplement to lipreading than a full Manually Coded Lanugage. Cued Speech uses a limited number of handshapes and locations near the mouth to differentiate between sounds not distinguishable from on the lips.
The use of MCLs is controversial, and is opposed by those who believe Deaf people should speak, lipread and use hearing aids rather than sign, as well as those who support the natural sign languages of the Deaf community over these cumbersome systems imposed and invented by hearing people.
List of manually coded languages
- Afrikaans: Signed Afrikaans
- Alu (Thailand): Cued Speech (Alu)
- Arabic: Arabic Sign Language; Cued Speech (Arabic)
- Byelorussian: Cued Speech (Byelorussian)
- Chinese:
- Cantonese: Cued Speech (Cantonese (Chinese))
- Signed Chinese (Taiwan)
- Danish: Signed Danish
- Dutch: Cued Speech (Dutch)
- Signed Dutch (Netherlands)
- Flemish: Vlamisch met Gebaren ("Signed Dutch (Belguim)")
- English (see Manually Coded English): Paget Gorman Signed Speech (PGSS); The "Rochester Method" — fingerspelling everything (different manual alphabets are used in different regions).
- American English: American Signed English; Seeing Essential English (SEE1); Signing Exact English (SEE2); Linguistics of Visual English (LOVE); Conceptually Accurate Signed English (CASE); Cued Speech (American English)
- Australian English: Australasian Signed English; Cued Speech (Australian English)
- British English: British Signed English and Sign Supported Speech (SSS); Cued Speech (British, Standard Southern)
- Hiberno-English (Ireland): Signed English (Ireland)
- Scottish English: Cued Speech (Scottish English)
- South African English: Cued Speech (South African English)
- Esperanto: Signuno
- Finnish
- Flemish - see Dutch (Belgium)
- French:
- Belgian French: Signed French (Belgium)
- Canadian French: Cued Speech (French-Canadian)
- Standard French (France): le Français Signé ("Signed French"); Cued Speech ("Langage parlé complété", LPC)
- German: Lautsprachbegleitende(r) Gebärden or Lautbegleitende Gebärden (LBG, "Signed German"); "Phonembestimmes Manualsystem" (Phonemic Manual System).
- Indonesian: Sistem Isyarat Bahasa Indonesia (SIBI, "Signed Indonesian")
- Japanese: Signed Japanese
- Norwegian: SIgned Norwegian
- Portuguese: Signed Portuguese
- Cued Speech (Brazilian)
- Cued Speech (European)
- Russian: Signed Russian
- Spanish: Signed Spanish
- Swedish: Tecknad svenska, ("Signed Swedish"), developed in the 1970s but now largely out of use.
- Telegu: Cued Speech (Telegu)
- Thai: Cued Speech (Thai)
- Warlpiri (Australia): Warlpiri Sign Language
See also
- Contact sign — A mixed language arising from contact between a spoken or manually coded language and a deaf sign language.
- Manual alphabet — a means of representing the written alphabet of a spoken language, but often a central part of natural sign languages.