Quebec Sign Language

Quebec Sign Language (LSQ)
Langue des signes québécoise
Native to	Canada
Region	Quebec, parts of Ontario and New Brunswick. Some communities within francophone groups in other regions of Canada.
Native speakers	estimates from 910 (2011 census) to 50,000 (2010)
Language family	Francosign Old LSF LSF–ASL contact language Quebec Sign Language (LSQ)
Writing system	none si5s (ASLwrite)
Official status
Official language in	none
Recognised minority language in	Ontario only in domains of: legislation, education and judiciary proceedings
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog	queb1245

Quebec Sign Language, known in French as Langue des signes québécoise or Langue des signes du Québec (LSQ), is the predominant sign language of d/Deaf communities used in francophone Canada, primarily in Quebec. Although named Quebec sign, LSQ can be found within communities in Ontario and New Brunswick as well as certain other regions across Canada. Being a member of the French Sign Language family, it is most closely related to French Sign Language (LSF), being a result of mixing between American Sign Language (ASL) and LSF. As LSQ can be found near and within francophone communities, there is a high level of borrowing of words and phrases from French, but it is far from creating a creole language. However, alongside LSQ, signed French and Pidgin LSQ French exist, where both mix LSQ and French more heavily to varying degrees.

LSQ was developed around 1850 by certain religious communities to help teach children and adolescents in Quebec from a situation of language contact. Since then, after a period of forced oralism, LSQ has become a strong language amongst Deaf communities within Quebec and across Canada. However, due to the glossing of LSQ in French and a lack of curriculum within hearing primary and secondary education, there still exists large misconceptions amongst hearing communities about the nature of LSQ and sign languages as a whole which negatively impacts policy making on a larger scale.

In the mid-1800s, Catholic priests took the existing LSF and ASL and combined the two to promote education of deaf children and adolescents. Several decades later, under the influence of Western thought, oralism became the primary mode of instruction in Quebec and the rest of North America. There, students were subjected to environments that discouraged and often outright banned LSQ use, instead promoting the use of whatever residual hearing the student had if any. Such an approach had varying effects where audism lead to lower literacy rates as well as lower rates of language acquisition seen in children sent to residential schools at an early age.