Discussion utilisateur:Thewayforward~frwiki/An awesome translation of the English Wikipedia's Sign language article

Les langues des signes sont des langues naturelles que les personnes sourdes ont développées pour communiquer entre elles. Ces langues partagent plusìeurs caractéristiques avec les langues orales, par exemple une grammaire, une syntaxe, une pragmatique, un lexique, etc. Elles reposent sur la double articulation des unités constitutives de la langue. Les experts recensent 121 langues des signes différentes (pour en savoir davantage, consultez le site Ethnologue : Deaf sign language). Comme toute langue, on peut très bien apprendre une langue des signes comme seconde langue; il n'est pas nécessaire d'avoir une surdité pour communiquer en langue des signes, plusieurs entendants parviennent à développer un degré de bilinguisme solide. Sommairement, les grands traits des langues signées comprennent une combinaison de configurations manuelles, d'orientations des mains, de localisation spatiale, de mouvements (bras, mains, tronc, épaules, têtes) et d'expressions faciales (joue, lèvres, sourcils, regard...).

La langue des signes n'est pas une langue universelle : il y a des différences entre les langues des signes dans le monde qui varient entre région. Le développement d'une langue des signes dépend de la région, comme pour une langue orale. Le plus souvent, la langue des signes d'une région n'a aucune correspondance avec la langue orale régionale. En dépit des différences entre les langues des signes du monde, la communication est plus facile qu'entre les gens parlant différentes langues orales. Il existe des centaines de langues des signes dans le monde, dont quelques-unes ont obtenu une reconnaissance légale, tandis que d'autres n'en ont aucune.

Histoire des langues des signes[modifier le code]

L'histoire écrite des langues des signes commence dès le 16^e siècle en tant que langue visuelle, ou moyen de communication. En Italie, il existe des langues des signes standardisées depuis le 17^e siècle, et en France, l'Abbé de l'Épée a ouvert la première école pour les sourd-muets dans le 18^e siècle, tout en développant grammaticalement la langue, qui est devenue la Langue des signes française. La première école américaine permanente pour les sourds fut établie en 1817 par Laurent Clerc, ancien professeur de l'Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets, et Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, révérend et diplômé de l'Université de Yale. Le statut des langues des signes s'est amelioré, jusqu'à l'étendue où de nos jours un nombre de langues des signes sont reconnues par des gouvernements. La langue des signes de Nouvelle-Zélande est la seule langue des signes à devenir, en avril 2006, une langue officielle.

Geographic distribution of sign languages[modifier le code]

Generally, each spoken language has a sign language counterpart in as much as each linguistic population will contain deaf members who will generate a sign language. In much the same way that geographical or cultural forces will isolate populations and lead to the generation of different and distinct spoken languages, the same forces operate on sign languages and so they tend to maintain their identities through time in roughly the same areas of influence as the local spoken tongues. This occurs even though sign languages have no relation to the spoken languages of the lands in which they arise. There are notable exceptions to this pattern, however, as some geographic regions sharing a spoken language have multiple, unrelated signed languages.

Variations within a 'national' sign language can usually be correlated to the geographic location of (residential) schools for the deaf.

The International Sign Language, formerly known as Gestuno, is used mainly at international Deaf events such as the Deaflympics and meetings of the World Federation of the Deaf. Recent studies claim that while International Sign Language is a kind of a pidgin, they conclude that it is more complex than a typical pidgin and indeed is more like that of a full sign language.

Use of signs in hearing communities[modifier le code]

Gesture is a typical component of spoken languages. More elaborate systems of manual communication have developed in situations where speech is not practical or permitted, such as cloistered religious communities, scuba diving, television recording studios, loud workplaces, stock exchanges, in baseball, while hunting (by groups such as the Kalahari bushmen), or in the game Charades. In Rugby Union the Referee uses a limited but defined set of signs to communicate his/her decisions to the spectators. Recently, there has been a movement to teach and encourage the use of sign language with toddlers before they learn to talk and with non-hearing-impaired children with other causes of speech impairment or delay. This is typically referred to as Baby Sign.

On occasion, where the prevalence of deaf people is high enough, a deaf sign language has been taken up by an entire local community. Famous examples of this include Martha's Vineyard Sign Language in the USA, Kata Kolok in a village in Bali, Adamorobe Sign Language in Ghana and Yucatec Maya sign language in Mexico. In such communities deaf people are not socially disadvantaged.

Many Australian Aboriginal sign languages arose in a context of extensive speech taboos, such as during mourning and initiation rites. They are or were especially highly developed among the Warlpiri, Warumungu, Dieri, Kaytetye, Arrernte, Warlmanpa, and are based on their respective spoken languages.

A pidgin sign language arose among tribes of American Indians in the Great Plains region of North America (see Plains Indians). It was used to communicate among tribes with different spoken languages. There are especially users today among the Crow, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. Unlike other sign languages developed by hearing people, it shares the spatial grammar of deaf sign languages.

Linguistics of sign[modifier le code]

In linguistic terms, sign languages are as rich and complex as any oral language, despite the common misconception that they are not "real languages". Professional linguists have studied many sign languages and found them to have every linguistic component required to be classed as true languages.

Sign languages are not pantomime, and they are not a visual rendition of an oral language. They have rich, complex grammars of their own, and can be used to discuss any topic, from the simple and concrete to the lofty and abstract.

Sign languages, like oral languages, organize elementary, meaningless units (phonemes; once called cheremes in the case of sign languages) into meaningful semantic units. The elements of a sign are Handshape (or Handform), Orientation (or Palm Orientation), Location (or Place of Articulation), Movement, and Non-manual markers (or Facial Expression), summarised in the acronym HOLME.

Common linguistic features of deaf sign languages are extensive use of classifiers, a high degree of inflection, and a topic-comment syntax. Many unique linguistic features emerge from sign languages' ability to produce meaning in different parts of the visual field simultaneously. For example, the recipient of a signed message can read meanings carried by the hands, the facial expression and the body posture in the same moment. This is in contrast to oral languages, where the sounds that comprise words are mostly sequential (tone being an exception).

Sign languages' relationships with oral languages[modifier le code]

A common misconception is that sign languages are somehow dependent on oral languages, that is, that they are oral language spelled out in gesture, or that they were invented by hearing people. Hearing teachers of deaf schools, such as Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, are often incorrectly referred to as inventors of sign language.

Fingerspelling is used in sign languages, mostly for proper names. The use of fingerspelling was once taken as evidence that sign languages are simplified versions of oral languages, but in fact it is merely one tool among many. Fingerspelling can sometimes be a source of new signs, which are called lexicalized signs.

On the whole, deaf sign languages are independent of oral languages and follow their own paths of development. For example, British Sign Language and American Sign Language are quite different and mutually unintelligible, even though the hearing people of Britain and America share the same oral language.

Similarly, countries which use a single oral language throughout may have two or more sign languages; whereas an area that contains more than one oral language might use only one sign language.

Written forms of sign languages[modifier le code]

Fichier:Signwriting vgt fotomodel.png

A sign for "photo model" using SignWriting in the dictionary of the Flemish Sign Language

Sign language differs from oral language in its relation to writing. The phonemic systems of oral languages are primarily sequential: that is, the majority of phonemes are produced in a sequence one after another, although many languages also have non-sequential aspects such as tone. As a consequence, traditional phonemic writing systems are also sequential, with at best diacritics for non-sequential aspects such as stress and tone.

Sign languages have a higher non-sequential component, with many "phonemes" produced simultaneously. For example, signs may involve fingers, hands, and face moving simultaneously, or the two hands moving in different directions. Traditional writing systems are not designed to deal with this level of complexity.

Partially because of this, sign languages are not often written. Most deaf signers read and write the oral language of their country. However, there have been several attempts at developing scripts for sign language. These have included both "phonetic" systems, such as HamNoSys (the Hamburg Notational System) and SignWriting, which can be used for any sign language, and "phonemic" systems such as the one used by William Stokoe in his 1965 Dictionary of American Sign Language, which are designed for a specific language.

These systems are based on iconic symbols. Some, such as SignWriting and HamNoSys, are pictographic, being conventionalized pictures of the hands, face, and body; others, such as the Stokoe notation, are more iconic. Stokoe used letters of the Latin alphabet and Hindu numerals to indicate the handshapes used in fingerspelling, such as 'A' for a closed fist, 'B' for a flat hand, and '5' for a spread hand; but non-alphabetic symbols for location and movement, such as '[]' for the trunk of the body, '×' for contact, and '^' for an upward movement. Lloyd Anderson has gone further and attempted to write ASL using only the Latin alphabet, but has not published his work. David J. Peterson has also attempted to create a phonetic transcription system for signing that is ASCII-friendly known as the Sign Language International Phonetic Alphabet (SLIPA).

SignWriting, being pictographic, is able to represent simultaneous elements in a single sign. The Stokoe notation, on the other hand, is sequential, with a conventionalized order of a symbol for the location of the sign, then one for the hand shape, and finally one (or more) for the movement. The orientation of the hand is indicated with an optional diacritic before the hand shape. When two movements occur simultaneously, they are written one atop the other; when sequential, they are written one after the other. Neither the Stokoe nor HamNoSys scripts are designed to represent facial expressions or non-manual movements, both of which SignWriting accommodates easily, although this is being gradually corrected in HamNoSys.

Home sign[modifier le code]

See main article: Home sign

Sign systems are sometimes developed within a single family. For instance, when hearing parents with no sign language skills have a deaf child, an informal system of signs will naturally develop, unless repressed by the parents. The term for these mini-languages is home sign (sometimes homesign or kitchen sign).

Home sign arises due to the absence of any other way to communicate. Within the span of a single lifetime and without the support or feedback of a community, the child is forced to invent signals to facilitate the meeting of his or her communication needs. Although this kind of system is grossly inadequate for the intellectual development of a child and it comes nowhere near meeting the standards linguists use to describe a complete language, it is a common occurrence.

Reconnaissance des langues signées[modifier le code]

En Nouvelle-Zélande, la langue des signes de Nouvelle-Zélande est devenue, le 6 avril 2006, langue officielle à côté de l'anglais et du maori.
En France, le Sénat a reconnu la langue des signes française (LSF) comme langue à part entière le 1er mars 2004 (source : http://www.senat.fr/leg/tas03-064.html)
Au Canada, la province du Manitoba est la première à reconnaître officiellement la langue des signes américaine comme des communautés sourdes en milieu anglophone (1988), suivi de l'Alberta qui reconnaît l'ASL comme langue optionnelle dans l'enseignement (1990); l'Ontario reconnaît l'ASL et la LSQ comme langues d'enseignement (1993).
En Belgique la langue des signes belge francophone est reconnue officiellement le 21 octobre 2003 par le parlement de la Communauté française de Belgique. Aux Flandres, la langues des signes flamande est reconnue le 26 avril 2006 par le parlement flamand Decreet houdende de erkenning van de Vlaamse Gebarentaal.
En Australie, Auslan est reconnue officiellement en 1987 et en 1991 par le Gouvernement d'Australie
En Autriche, la langue des signes autrichienne est reconnue officiellement le 1 septembre 2005 - la Constitution d'Autriche est modifiée afin d'inclure „§8 (3) Die Österreichische Gebärdensprache ist als eigenständige Sprache anerkannt. Das Nähere bestimmen die Gesetze.“ (« La langue des signes autrichienne est reconnu comme langue indépendante ». Pour plus d'informations voir http://www.oeglb.at/.
Au Brésil, la langue des signes brésilienne est reconnue officiellement en 2002 dans la domaine de l'éducation. Il est statué que chaque enfant sourd a le droit d'apprendre en sa propre langue et d'avoir le portugais comme 2^e langue.
Dans la République tchèque, la langue des signes tchèque est reconnue 1998 - voir la législation ici (en tchèque)
Le Parlement européen a approuvé une résolution concernant les langues des signes le 17 juin 1988. La résolution demande à tous les états-membres la reconnaissance de sa langues des signes comme langue officielle des sourds.
En Finlande, la langue des signes finnoise est reconnue dans la Constitution de Finlande en août 1995.
En Espagne, seulement les communautés autonomes de Catalogne, Andalousie et Valence reconnaissent des langues des signes.
Au Nouvelle-Zélande, la langue des signes de Nouvelle-Zélande est la prémière langue des signes à devenir, le 6 avril 2006, une langue officielle. C'est la 3^e langue officielle du pays, après l'anglais et le maori.
En Norvège, la langue des signes norvégienne est reconnue. Une émission quotidienne Nyheter på tegnspråk (Actualités en langue des signes) est diffusée chaque jour sur la chaîne de télévision de Norsk Rikskringkasting.
Au Portugal, la langue des signes portugaise est reconnue dans la domaine de l'éducation sous la constitution de Portugal.
En Slovaquie, la langue des signes slovaque est reconnue en 1995 dans la loi "Zákon o posunkovej reči nepočujúcich osob 149/1995 Sb" - « La loi de langue des signes des sourds 149/1995 »
En Thaïlande, la langue des signes thaïlandaise est reconnue le 17 août 1999.
En Ouganda, la langue des signes d'Ouganga est reconnue dans la constitution
Aux États-Unis, American Sign Language est reconnue dans plusieurs états en tant que langue étrangère.
En Venezuela, la langues des signes vénézuélienne est reconnue le 12 novembre 1999 dans la constitution.