Glottolog swis1240 | ISO 639-3 sgg | |
Language family possibly French SLSwiss-German Sign Language | ||
Swiss-German Sign Language (German: Deutschschweizer Gebärdensprache, abbreviated DSGS) is the primary deaf sign language of the German-speaking part of Switzerland. The language was established around 1828. In 2011 it was estimated that 7,500 deaf and 13,000 hearing people use DSGS. There are six dialects which developed in boarding schools for the deaf, in Zurich, Bernese, Basel, Lucerne, and St. Gallen, as well as in Liechtenstein.
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Name
In Switzerland, the language is called Gebärdensprache (Sign language) if a distinction from other languages is not required. In some sources it's called Natürliche Gebärden or Natürliche Gebärdensprache, or Swiss Sign Language (Langage gestuel suisse). The former just means 'natural sign', like those for "sleep" or "eat", in contrast to Abstrakte Gebärden 'conceptual sign', and this term is therefore no longer used. Most English sources today uses the term German-Swiss Sign Language or Swiss-German Sign Language.
Classification
Wittmann (1991) suspects that Swiss-German Sign Language may be part of the French Sign Language family, but it is not close and this is not easy to demonstrate.
In Switzerland, the parentage of this language is still in research. A research, if DSGS could be a derivat of the German Sign Language (DGS) is planned, but it was observed, DSGS signers often are more open for borrowing loan signs from LSF-SR, the French Sign Language dialect of the Suisse Romande, and less from the DGS.
Literature
Two books have been published in SignWriting.