The LSF family descends from Old French Sign Language (VLSF), which developed among the deaf community in Paris. The earliest mention of Old French Sign Language is by the abbé Charles-Michel de l'Épée in the late 18th century, but it could have existed for centuries prior. Several European sign languages, such as Russian Sign Language, derive from it, as does American Sign Language, established when French educator Laurent Clerc taught his language at the American School for the Deaf. Others, such as Spanish Sign Language, are thought to be related to French Sign Language even if they are not directly descendent from it.
Language family tree
Anderson (1979)
Anderson (1979)[1] postulated the following classification of LSF and its relatives, with derivation from Medieval monks' sign systems, though some lineages are apparently traced by their manual alphabets and thus irrelevant for actual classification:
Eastern French: Old Danish (edu. 1807), Old German, German Evangelical (edu. 1779 Austria), Old Russian (edu. 1806)
Western French
Middle French Sign Language finger-spelling group: Netherlands (1780), Belgium (1793), Switzerland, Old French
Middle French (dict. 1850)
French
American (edu. 1816; later including components from Northwest European sign languages)
International finger-spelling group: Norway, Finland, Germany, US
Old Brazilian
Brazil, Argentina, Mexico
Wittmann (1991) and later research
Henri Wittmann (1991)[2][3] has been influential in scholarly attempts at constructing the French Sign Language family tree. He listed most of the following suspected members of the family, with date of establishment or earliest attestation. Subsequent scholarly research has confirmed most of his conclusions, but rejected others and expanded the family tree with new branches, while removing others.
^Lloyd Anderson & David Peterson, 1979, A comparison of some American, British, Australian, and Swedish signs: evidence on historical changes in signs and some family relationships of sign languages
^Wittmann, Henri (1991). "Classification linguistique des langues signées non vocalement." Revue québécoise de linguistique théorique et appliquée 10:1.215–88.[1]
^SIL reports that it is mutually intelligible with Swedish Sign Language, which Wittmann assigns to the BANZSL family and other authors suspect is an independent family.
^McCaskill, Carolyn, Ceil Lucas, Robert Bayley, and Joseph Hill. 2011. The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL: Its History and Structure. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. ISBN978-1-56368-489-0.
^a Sign-language names reflect the region of origin. Natural sign languages are not related to the spoken language used in the same region. For example, French Sign Language originated in France, but is not related to French. Conversely, ASL and BSL both originated in English-speaking countries but are not related to each other; ASL however is related to French Sign Language.
^b Denotes the number (if known) of languages within the family. No further information is given on these languages.
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