View source for BANZSL

{{Short description|Sign language family}}
{{Infobox language family
| name          = BANZSL
| region        = [[Great Britain]], [[Northern Ireland]], [[South Africa]], [[Newfoundland and Labrador]], ''[[Maritimes]]'', [[Australia]] and [[New Zealand]]
| familycolor   = sign language
| family        = One of the world's [[sign language|sign]] [[sign language#Classification|language families]]
| child1        = [[British Sign Language|British Sign]]
| child2        = [[Auslan]]
| child3        = [[New Zealand Sign Language|New Zealand Sign]]
| child4        = [[South African Sign Language|South African Sign]]
| child5        = [[Maritime Sign Language|Maritime Sign]]
| child6        = [[Northern Ireland Sign Language|Northern Ireland Sign]]
| child7        = [[Papua New Guinean Sign Language|PNG Sign]]
| child8        = ?[[Swedish Sign Language family|Swedish Sign]]
| glotto        = bsli1234
| glottorefname = BSLic
| map           = BANZSL_map.png
| mapcaption    = {{Legend|#00A4E3|Areas where BANZSL languages are signed}}{{Legend striped|#00A4E3|gray|Areas where a BANZSL language is fading from use}}
}}

'''British, Australian and New Zealand Sign Language''' ('''BANZSL''', {{IPAc-en|ˈ|b|æ|n|z|əl}}<ref name="becauselanguage">{{cite web|url=https://becauselanguage.com/102-signed-language-mailbag/|title=102: Signed Language Mailbag (with Adam Schembri, Christy Filipich, and Mark Ellison)|work=Because Language|date=27 July 2024|access-date=26 August 2024}}</ref>), or the '''British Sign Language (BSL) family''', is a [[language family]] or grouping encompassing three related [[sign languages]]: [[British Sign Language]], [[Auslan]] and [[New Zealand Sign Language]] (NZSL). The term ''BANZSL'' was coined informally by the linguists [[Trevor Johnston]] and Adam Schembri in the early 2000s. However, in 2024, Schembri remarked that the Wikipedia article on BANZSL had begun describing it with the more specific or authoritative meaning of "the language from which modern BSL and Auslan and New Zealand sign language have descended", a meaning that "took on a life of its own&mdash;something that we didn't intend".<ref name="becauselanguage"/> As a result, Schembri says he and Johnston have disowned the term due to pushback from Deaf communities, concerned that it is replacing the names of each of the three languages.<ref name="becauselanguage"/>{{sfnp|Palfreyman|Schembri|2022}} 

BSL, Auslan and NZSL all have their roots in a Deaf sign language used in Britain during the 19th century. The three languages in question are related in their use of similar grammar, [[Two-handed manual alphabet|manual alphabet]], and high degree of lexical overlap. 

[[American Sign Language]] and the BANZSL varieties are not part of the same language family. However, there is still significant overlap in vocabulary, probably due largely to relatively recent borrowing of lexicon by signers of all three BANZSL varieties, with many younger signers unaware which signs are recent imports.

Between Auslan, BSL and NZSL, 82% of signs are identical (per [[Swadesh list]]s). When considering identical as well as similar or related signs there are 98% [[cognate]] signs between the languages. By comparison, ASL and BANZSL have only 31% signs identical, or 44% cognate.

According to [[Henri Wittmann]] (1991), [[Swedish Sign Language]] also descends from BSL. From Swedish SL arose [[Portuguese Sign Language]] and [[Finnish Sign Language]], the latter with local admixture; [[Danish Sign Language]] is largely mutually intelligible with Swedish SL, though Wittmann places it in the [[French Sign Language family]].

Anderson (1979) instead suggested that [[Swedish Sign Language|Swedish Sign]], [[German Sign Language|German Sign]] and [[British Sign Language|British Sign]] share one origin in a "North-West European" sign language.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lucas |first=Ceil |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lxpuT_s8AkEC&q=Swedish&pg=PA6 |title=The Sociolinguistics of Sign Languages |date=2001-10-04 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-79474-9 |language=en}}</ref>

==Languages==
{{tree list}}
*BSL (sign attested from 1644 may not be BSL), with approximately 151,000 users<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bda.org.uk/bsl-statistics|title=British Sign Language (BSL) Statistics}}</ref>
**Australian SL (1860. ASL and [[Irish Sign Language|ISL]] influences), with approximately 10 000 users <ref name="Australian Bureau of Statistics">{{cite web|url= http://www.vicdeaf.com.au/files/editor_upload/File/Research%20Reports/The%20distribution%20of%20Victorian%20sign%20language%20users.pdf|title= The distribution of Victorian sign language users|access-date= 12 March 2016|author= Australian Bureau of Statistics|date= 2013|publisher= [[Australian Bureau of Statistics]]|url-status= live|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160307105909/http://www.vicdeaf.com.au/files/editor_upload/File/Research%20Reports/The%20distribution%20of%20Victorian%20sign%20language%20users.pdf|archive-date= 7 March 2016|df= dmy-all}}</ref>
*** Papua New Guinea Sign Language ({{circa|1990}}), which is a creole formed with Auslan, used by 30,000 people <ref>[http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/2015-066.pdf ISO request part 1][http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/2015-066_pgz.pdf ISO request part 2]</ref>
**New Zealand SL (1800s), used by approximately 20,000 people <ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.stats.govt.nz/Census/2013-census/data-tables/total-by-topic.aspx|title=2013 Census totals by topic|website=archive.stats.govt.nz|language=en-nz|access-date=2019-05-28|archive-date=2017-11-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171122042347/http://www.stats.govt.nz/Census/2013-census/data-tables/total-by-topic.aspx|url-status=dead}}</ref>
**Northern Ireland SL (19th century - with [[American Sign Language]] and [[Irish Sign Language]] influences)
**South African SL (somewhere between 1846 & 1881), used by perhaps 235,000 people
**Maritime SL ({{circa|1860}}), with perhaps 100 extant users <ref name=Yoel>{{cite web |last=Yoel |first=Judith |title=Canada's Maritime Sign Language |url=http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/4896 |website=Endangered Languages |access-date=10 February 2017}}</ref> 
**? [[Swedish Sign Language family]] (1800)
*** Swedish Sign Language (1800)
*** Finnish SL (1850s, with local admixture)
*** Finland-Swedish SL (1850s, a middle form between Finnish and Swedish SL)
*** Eritrean Sign (1955, with much local admixture)
*** Portuguese SL (1823)
*** Cape Verdian Sign (1990s, with local admixture)
{{tree list/end}}
<div style="overflow: scroll">{{BANZSL family tree}}</div>

==See also==
* [[Old French Sign Language]] – a contemporary of BANZSL
* [[French Sign Language family]]

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
* Johnston, T. (2003). ''BSL, Auslan and NZSL: Three signed languages or one?''  In A. Baker, B. van den Bogaerde & O. Crasborn (Eds.), "Cross-linguistic perspectives in sign language research: Selected papers from TISLR 2000" (pp.&nbsp;47–69). Hamburg: Signum Verlag.
* McKee, D. & G. Kennedy  (2000). Lexical Comparison of Signs from American, Australian, British, and New Zealand Sign Languages. In K. Emmorey and H. Lane (Eds), "The signs of language revisited: an anthology to honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima". Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
* {{cite journal
|last1=Palfreyman
|first1=Nick
|last2=Schembri
|first2=Adam
|year=2022
|title=Lumping and splitting: Sign language delineation and ideologies of linguistic differentiation
|journal=Journal of Sociolinguistics
|volume=26
|issue=1
|pages=105–112
|doi=10.1111/josl.12524
}}

{{Language families}}
{{BANZSL languages}}
{{sign language navigation}}

[[Category:BANZSL Sign Language family]]
[[Category:Deaf culture]]