Maritime Sign Language

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Maritime Sign Language (MSL)
Langue des Signes Maritime
MSL Name.png
Native toCanada
RegionAtlantic Canada
Native speakers
Unknown
BANZSL
  • Maritime Sign Language (MSL)
none
Official status
Official language in
none
Recognised minority
language in
none
Language codes
ISO 639-3nsr
Glottologmari1381[1]
US & Canada sign-language map (excl. ASL and LSQ).png
  Maximum historical range of Maritime Sign Language among other sign languages in the US and Canada (excl. ASL and LSQ)

Maritime Sign Language (MSL) is a sign language and used in Canada's Atlantic provinces descended from British Sign Language.

Maritime Sign Language is descended from British Sign Language[2][3] through the convergence of deaf communities from the Northeastern United States and the United Kingdom who immigrated to Canada during the 18th and 19th centuries.[4] As late as the mid-20th century, it was the dominant form of sign language in the Maritimes, the language of instruction at the Halifax School for the Deaf and the Amherst School for the Deaf.[3]

MSL is being supplanted by American Sign Language (ASL)—in the 21st century, it is largely restricted to older people in the Maritimes.[3] The dialect of ASL used in the region exhibits lexical influences from MSL.[3] The number of MSL speakers is unknown and has been estimated at fewer than 100,[4] although linguistic communities are found across the Atlantic provinces.

Resources (education, interpretation, etc.) for MSL speakers are largely lacking, but a grant to the Nova Scotia Cultural Society of the Deaf produced VHS tapes documenting the language, and in the 2010s a project was started to document placenames in Atlantic Canada in both MSL and ASL and has resulted in interactive online maps.[3]

The language is recorded in a 2017 documentary film, Halifax Explosion: The Deaf Experience, and was contrasted with ASL to comic effect in a piece performed at the 2019 Sound Off Theatre Festival in Edmonton about a Nova Scotian and an American travelling in Eastern Canada.[3]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Maritime Sign Language". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. ^ Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.) (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (15th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  3. ^ a b c d e f Davie, Emma (31 December 2019). "How the deaf community is preserving Maritime Sign Language". CBC News.
  4. ^ a b Yoel, Judith (2009). Canada's Maritime Sign Language (PDF) (PhD thesis). Winnipeg: University of Manitoba. Retrieved 2020-01-23.
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