Bulgarian Sign Language

Summary

Bulgarian Sign Language (in Bulgarian: "български жестомимичен език (БЖЕ)") is the language, or perhaps languages, of the deaf community in Bulgaria.

Bulgarian Sign Language
Native toBulgaria
Native speakers
21,000 (2021 DBS/DOOR/SIL)[1] (2014)[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3bqn
Glottologbulg1240

Primary schools were established for the deaf. Russian Sign Language was introduced in 1910, and allowed in the classroom in 1945, and Wittmann (1991) classifies it as a descendant of Russian Sign.[3] However, Bickford (2005) found that Bulgarian Sign formed a cluster with Slovak, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, and Polish Sign.[4] The language of the classroom is different from that used by adults outside,[2] and it is not clear if Wittmann and Bickford looked at the same language; nor, if one is derived from Russian Sign, if it is a dialect or if it creolized to form a new language.

References edit

  1. ^ Bulgarian Sign Language at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)  
  2. ^ a b Bulgarian Sign Language at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  3. ^ Wittmann, Henri (1991). "Classification linguistique des langues signées non vocalement." Revue québécoise de linguistique théorique et appliquée 10:1.215–88.[1]
  4. ^ Bickford, 2005. The Signed Languages of Eastern Europe