History of British Sign Language (BSL)?

[Frank]

Dear Val:
   Mary Brennan, Linguist at Moray House, College  of Education in
Edinburgh, Scotland, and A.B. Hayhurst, British Deaf Asosociation General
Secretary made these comments on BSL in 1980.
   BSL owes a debt to Dr William Stokoe and the revolution in learning he
initiated in the USA in 1960.   Such revolution is now being repeated in
England.
     [Gallaudet, traveling to england first to learn sign he could teach a
deaf girl,
      found the British Sign teachers very reserved. Gallaudet moved to
France to
      learn from Abbe de L'Epee, and took Laurence Clerk back to the USA to
help him
      teach .  President Lincoln signed a charter for the first deaf school
led by Gallaudet
      about  1862]
First steps to repair neglect of Sign were made by Dr.Stokoe about 1950.  He
caused the English to begin to think of BSL in terms of the Sign structure,
not in terms of the structure of the English language.
   Important development areas include:
     ***The Communications Skills Program:  BDA (British Deaf Association)
conducted this, with money from the Department of Health and Social
Security.
     ***Sign Language Learning and Use program:  Univ. of Bristol project
Under Dr.Jim Kyle funded by government.  This investigated the methods
needed to learn a visual/gestural language (a Sign Language)
     ***The Edinburgh British Sign Language Research Project:  Mary Brennan
directed at Moray House College of Education, funded by the Scottish
Education Department.  this project studied the Linguistic structure of BSL.
     ***The Sign Linguistics Research Group:  at University of Newcastle,
supported by Northern Counties school for the Deaf, the BDA, and a private
doner.  The Acquisition of Sign Language by a child of deaf parents was the
focus of this group, and the development of good ways to teach Sign at all
levels.

   The BDA was founded in 1890 to encourage use of Sign, and establish a
Registry of Interpreters among other things.  "Sign-It" a dictionary of BSL
with 2000 signs was prepared under Allen Hayhurst, with the cooperation of
the Deaf.
   In May 1979 the four groups came together at Newcastle for the first BSL
Workshop. Coding BSL was recognized as a problem. Dr. Stokoes notation was
modified to be used [See Stokoe's "Dictionary of ASL on Linguistic
Principles, Gallaudet Press 1965 or "the Basic ASL Dictionary" by Frank
Byrom [the latter for a brief summary of Stokoe's system]   A booklet,
"Coding British Sign Language" was compiled and produced (Bristol
University, 1979)  In Scotland, over half the schools for the Deaf have
adopted "Total Communication"  [this usually means signing and speaking at
the same time]
   Stokoe has said he would expect three languages to be used in a school
for the deaf, BSL, English, and a Pidgin sign English (a mixture of sign and
english), and it has not yet been shown that a method of signing English
would help the Deaf to learn English.
   Several English friends have written to me saying they have taken courses
in BSL.  Mary cited there being a number (more than 10 implied) of schools
for the deaf in Scotland.  Has your French student tried the internet Web
for a site for the British Deaf Association?
   Love Frank



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Valerie Sutton" <sutton at signwriting.org>
To: <sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu>
Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2006 5:50 PM
Subject: [sw-l] History of British Sign Language (BSL)?


> SignWriting List
> April 1st, 2006
>
> Dear SW List Members!
> I received this message asking me about the history of BSL. Can
> anyone answer these questions for us? ;-)
>
>
> > Hello,
> >> I am french. My english is not very good, but I would like know
> >> when the BSL was invented, why, who has invented ? I would like
> >> know this history.
> >> And, I have a a second question, I would like know if there are a
> >> lot of school in Great Britain to learn the BSL, and how the deaf
> >> persons learn this language ?
> >>
> >> I must to give a talk on for my teacher. I have research somme
> >> informations,but it's not the very good informations also, that's
> >> why I ask you.
> >>
> >> I thank you very much for all.
> >>
>
>
>