Answering Your Most Common Questions About Sign Languages
How many Sign languages are there in the world?
It’s difficult to obtain an accurate number of languages in the world for a variety of reasons — this becomes all the more difficult when trying to put a number on signed languages specifically. Ethnologue lists 142, but there are many more than that; for example, Rwandan Sign Language is not listed in the Ethnologue, although it’s an established language within the country. Wikipedia estimates the number to be around 300.
Signing communities are often small and, in some parts of the world, extremely discriminated against. Education systems often do not teach Sign languages and will even go so far as to prohibit the use of Sign languages within schools. Jessica Lee writes in her dissertation on the Deaf community of Tanzania that although there is one standardized sign language of Tanzania, Tanzanian Sign Language (LAT), there are hundreds of home signs that have emerged around the country (home signs are communication systems developed usually by Deaf children who are isolated from the Deaf community).
This creates a challenge for linguists working to classify and document Sign languages. In spoken languages, there is confusion and ongoing discussions revolving around the classification of languages and dialects; similarly, this occurs in signed…
