Swedish Sign Language | |
---|---|
Geographic distribution |
Europe |
Linguistic classification | ? British Sign
|
Subdivisions | |
Glottolog | swed1257 |
The Swedish Sign Language family is a language family of sign languages, including Swedish Sign Language, Portuguese Sign Language, and Finnish Sign Language.
Swedish SL started about 1800. Wittmann (1991) proposes that it descends from British Sign Language. However, other sources state that Swedish SL has no known predecessor. Regardless, Swedish SL in turn gave rise to Portuguese Sign Language (1823) and Finnish Sign Language (1850s), the latter with local admixture; Finnish and Swedish Sign are mutually unintelligible.
Ethnologue reports that Danish Sign Language is largely mutually intelligible with Swedish Sign, though Wittmann places DSL in the French Sign Language family.