the history of british sign language

British Sign Language is now usually referred to in its abbreviated form of BSL, just as the sign languages of other countries are referred to in a shortened version, for example, ASL - American Sign Language, AUSlan - Australian Sign Language, DGS - Deutsche Gebärdensprache (German Sign Language) and so on.

As recently as 1976, the term BSL was not yet in regular usage, and the sign language of Britain's Deaf Community was regarded as an inferior system of pantomime and gesture that was not a true language. Parents were advised not to allow their children to use signs or even gesture, as this would spoil their chances of developing speech and lip-reading skills in spite of the fact that this system was failing the majority of D/deaf children as described in this extract from SIGN IN SIGHT 1992.

"A study carried out in 1979 found that most deaf school leavers had not progressed beyond a reading age of 8.75 years. In real terms, this means that they would be unable to read the tabloid newspapers, and that instruction manuals, government or official forms, safety regulations, and so on, would all remain beyond comprehension. In addition, speech quality was found to be largely unintelligible, and skill at lip-reading was found to be no better than inexperienced hearing children, dispelling the myth that deaf people are good lip readers."

Large numbers of adult Deaf people remember vividly and with anger their frustration at not being able to understand what was going on, or to express themselves through sign language.

Even when families decided for themselves to offer their children something more, and to learn sign language, classes were virtually non-existent and there were precious few resources on the subject (the British Deaf Association's Dictionary of British Sign Language was not published until 1992).

Many people are surprised when they discover that sign language was forbidden in D/deaf education and not used in the teaching of D/deaf children until about 1975, and then not in all D/deaf schools. Its use was discouraged even informally, although D/deaf children could not be deterred from signing with each other in the playground and when teacher was not looking, since visual language is so important to them. The language is developed and passed on out of necessity, and the 10% or so of Deaf children of Deaf parents, who develop BSL as a first language, bring their valued native competence into the lives of others.

Deaf adult role models have also been rare in D/deaf children's lives, to the extent that some D/deaf children believed that they would no longer be Deaf when they grew up, because all the adults they knew were hearing. It was not considered appropriate to employ D/deaf people in Deaf schools until schools started to adopt policies using sign language, and there are still very few Deaf teachers. Approximately 90% of D/deaf children are born into hearing families who have usually never encountered D/deafness or sign language before.

Author: Cath Smith - Sign Language Companion 1996

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