SigmaMay 23, 2023
What languages do you speak?
German
27.1%
English
38%
Spanish
7.6%
French
12.3%
Dutch
2.9%
Swedish
2%
Japanese
0.9%
Something else (Comment)
9.1%
Poll ended at .
Show threadpascodaMay 23, 2023
@sigmasternchen
apart from German, English, Spanish, Swedish and French, i also know a bit of Italian, and am learning Austrian Sign Language currently. I think that's all 🤔
Show threadSigmaMay 23, 2023
@pascoda That’s a lot! 😮
Is Austrian sign language different from the German one?
Show threadpascoda
@sigmasternchen
pretty much _every_ country has their own sign language.
they all are natural languages, developed similar to spoken natural languages.
Sign Language similarities do not adhere to borders/commonalities across spoken languages, though - rather, they depict political borders from the 18th century or so.
German SL and Austrian SL, for example, are actually rather different from each other.
Austrian and Hungarian SL, on the other side are rather similar.
May 23, 2023 at 2:12pmWeb
Show threadpascodaMay 23, 2023

@sigmasternchen
finally, the differences are afaik not about grammar as in sentence structure.
it's more about what meanings a sign has, how important or intense body language, facial expressions, mouthing, etc are.
if you watch e.g. US American SL vs Austrian SL, you can see that there's lots of finger-spelling in USA, and facial expressions are more important in Austrian SL.

⚠️ If you're interested in learning to sign, find a Deaf person/institution & pay for lessons 😘