Lingua Brasileira de Sinais
| Brazilian Sign Language | |
|---|---|
| Libras | |
| Native to | Brazil and Brazilian diaspora |
| Region | Urban areas |
|
Native speakers
|
3 million (no date) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | braz1236 |
Brazilian Sign Language (BSL) is the sign language used by deaf communities of urban Brazil. It is also known as "Libras" (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈlibɾɐs], from "Língua Brasileira de Sinais" [ˈlĩɡwɐ bɾaziˈlejɾɐ dʒi siˈnajs]) and variously abbreviated as LSB, LGB or LSCB (Brazilian Cities Sign Language).
Brazilian Sign Language is well-established; several dictionaries, instructional videos and a number of articles on the linguistic features of the language have been published. It has dialects across Brazil reflecting regional and sociocultural differences.
A strong sign language law was passed by the National Congress of Brazil on April 24, 2002, and (in 2005) is in the process of being implemented. The law mandates the use of Brazilian Sign Language in education and government services.
Educational approaches have evolved from oralism to Total Communication and bilingualism.
BSL fingerspelling uses a one-handed manual alphabet similar to that used by the French Sign Language family.
There are 44 distinct handshapes used in the language.
There is no widely used writing system for Brazilian Sign Language. BSL signs are commonly transcribed using Portuguese words, written in upper case, to stand for each equivalent BSL morpheme. Although no writing system is widely used, there is a growing writing system created by a Brazilian linguist, Mariângela Estelita Barros, in 1998, which only in 2010 started to be used by community, specially in some Brazilian Universities where Libras is taught to both hearing and deaf students as an undergraduate course. This system is called ELiS, an acronym for "Escrita das Línguas de Sinais" (Sign Language Writing).
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