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Irish Sign Language

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Irish Sign Language
Teanga Chomharthaíochta na hÉireann
Native toRepublic of Ireland, Northern Ireland
Native speakers
5,000 deaf (2014)[1]
45,000 hearing signers
French Sign
  • Irish Sign Language
Language codes
ISO 639-3isg
Glottologiris1235
The ISL Fingerspelling Alphabet.

Irish Sign Language (ISL, Irish: Teanga Chomharthaíochta na hÉireann) is the sign language of Ireland, used primarily in the Republic of Ireland. It is also used in Northern Ireland, though British Sign Language (BSL) is also used there. Irish Sign Language is more closely related to French Sign Language (LSF) than to British Sign Language, though it has influence from both languages. It has influenced sign languages in Australia and South Africa, and has little relation to either spoken Irish or English.

The Irish Deaf Society says that ISL "arose from within deaf communities", "was developed by deaf people themselves" and "has been in existence for hundreds of years". According to Ethnologue, the language has influence from both LSF and BSL, as well as from signed French and signed English, BSL having been introduced in Dublin in 1816.[2] The first school for deaf children in Ireland was established in 1816 by Dr. Charles Orpen. The Claremont Institute was a Protestant institution and given that Ireland was a part of the United Kingdom, it is no surprise that BSL (or some version of signed English based in BSL) was used for teaching and learning (Pollard 2006). McDonnell (1979) reports that the Irish institutions - Catholic and Protestant - did not teach the children to speak and it was not until 1887 that Claremont report changing from a manual to an oral approach. For the Catholic schools, the shift to oralism came later: St. Mary's School for Deaf Girls moved to an oral approach in 1946 and St. Joseph's School for Deaf Boys shifted to oralism in 1956,[3] though this did not become formal state policy until 1972. Sign language use was seriously suppressed and religion was used to further stigmatise the language (e.g. children were encouraged to give up signing for Lent and sent to confession if caught signing).[4] The fact that the Catholic schools are segregated on the basis of gender led to the development of a gendered-generational variant of Irish Sign Language that is still evident (albeit to a lesser degree) today.[5]

ISL was brought by Catholic missionaries to Australia and South Africa, and to Scotland and England, with remnants of ISL still visible in some variants of BSL, especially in Glasgow, and with some elderly Auslan Catholics still using ISL today.

The ISO 639-3 code for Irish Sign Language is 'isg'; 'isl' is the code for Icelandic.

See also

References

  1. ^ Irish Sign Language at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=isg
  3. ^ Griffey 1994, Crean 1997
  4. ^ McDonnell and Saunders 1993
  5. ^ LeMaster 1990, Leeson and Grehan 2004, Leonard 2005, Grehan 2008
  • Crean, E, J. (1997): Breaking the silence: The education of the deaf in Ireland 1816-1996. Dublin: Irish Deaf Society Publication.
  • Department of Education (1972): The Education of Children who are Handicapped by Impaired Hearing. Dublin: Government Publications.
  • Grehan, C. (2008): Communication Islands: The Impact of Segregation on Attitudes to ISL among a Sample of Graduates of St. Mary's School for Deaf Girls. Unpublished M.Phil dissertation. School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences. Dublin: Trinity College.
  • Griffey, N. (1994): From Silence to Speech: Fifty years with the Deaf. Dublin: Dominican Publications.
  • Leeson, L. and C. Grehan (2004): "To The Lexicon and Beyond: The Effect of Gender on Variation in Irish Sign Language". In Van Herreweghe, Mieke and Myriam Vermeerbergen (eds.): To the Lexicon and Beyond: Sociolinguistics in European Deaf Communities. Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press. 39-73.
  • Leeson, L. and J. I. Saeed (2012) Irish Sign Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
  • LeMaster, B. (1990): The Maintenance and Loss of Female and Male Signs in the Dublin Deaf Community. Ann Arbor: U.M.I .: University of California, Los Angeles Dissertation.
  • Leonard, C. (2005): "Signs of diversity: use and recognition of gendered signs among your Irish Deaf people". In: Deaf Worlds 21:2. 62-77
  • McDonnell, P. (1979): The Establishment and Operation of Institutions for the Education of the Deaf in Ireland, 1816-1889. Unpublished essay submitted in part-fulfillment of the requirements of the award of the degree of Master in Education. Dublin: University College Dublin.
  • McDonnell, P. and Saunders, H. (1993): "Sit on Your Hands: Strategies to Prevent Signing". In Fischer, R. and Lane, H. (eds.) Looking Back: A Reader on the History of Deaf Communities and their Sign Languages. Hamburg: Signum. 255-260.
  • Pollard, Rachel (2006): The Avenue. Dublin: Denzille Press.
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