History of British Sign Language (BSL)?

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
April 1st, 2006

Hello Trevor and Shane!
Thank you for your information about British Sign Language. I have  
sent the information to the student in France who requested the  
information....It was very interesting to read the information!

Val ;-)

-------------------------


On Apr 1, 2006, at 3:22 PM, Trevor Jenkins wrote:

> On Sat, 1 Apr 2006, Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org> wrote:
>
>> I received this message asking me about the history of BSL. Can
>> anyone answer these questions for us? ;-)
>
> All we know for certain is that BSL was well established by 1575  
> when a
> certain Thomas Tillsye was married. The report of his wedding to  
> Ursula
> Ruddell included a description of signs he used. The specific  
> details are
> quoted in "The Linguistics of BSL" by Rachel Sutton-Spence and  
> Bencie Woll
> (Cambridge, 1999, p34).
>
> In answer to the second question. CACDP (the organisation currently
> responsible for awarding qualifications in BSL) claims that  
> learning the
> language is one of the most popular subjects taken in evening  
> classes. As
> for schools teaching it there are few (and getting fewer) --- though
> Shane's work in Norhtern Ireland is the start of a reinesance for BSL
> teaching in school. There are some Deaf schools where BSL is the  
> language
> of tution but sadly they are not that numerous; two examples are Frank
> Barnes School in N W London and Hamilton Lodge in Brighton.
>
> The situation may change with the introduction of a second syllabus  
> BSL.
> This time from the British Deaf Association. The advantage of this new
> approach is the formal definition of course content is given in BSL  
> itself
> not written in English as the one from CACDP.
>
> However, the situation will not change very much until such time as  
> the
> British Government does more than pay lip service to BSL. They may  
> have
> recognised the language but there is so far no legislation to  
> require or
> protect its use.
>
>>> 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.
>>>>
>>
>
> Regards, Trevor
>
> <>< Re: deemed!
>