query: relationships between sign languages

[Tommi Jantunen]

> Sweden  o  Norway  o  Finland

Diachronically:
The first school for the deaf in Finland was founded in 1846 by Carl
Oscar Malm, deaf himself. Malm had attended a school for the deaf in
Stockholm, Sweden, where he had acquired the sign language used in the
education. In Finland Malm's language began to spread among his deaf pupils and
developed eventually into Finnish Sign Language (FinSL).

Synchronically:
Finland is officially a bilingual country with Finnish and Swedish as
its national languages. Most deaf schools in Finland have been for the
children from Finnish speaking homes. The only school for the children from
Swedish speaking homes was closed in 1993.
      FinSL consists of two varieties: the main variety is used by the
deaf who have attended Finnish deaf schools. The other variety
(Finland-Swedish Sign Language, FinSSL) is used by the deaf who have
attended the now closed Swedish deaf school. FinSSL, which is today an
endangered language, seems to be more closely connected to Swedish Sign
Language than the main variety of FinSL. Both varieties of FinSL can be
seen as independent languages.


Karin Hoyer (karin.hoyer. at kl-deaf.fi)
Tommi Jantunen (tommi.jantunen at kl-deaf.fi)

The Finnish Association of the Deaf
The Centre for Finnish Sign Language
Helsinki, Finland