Swiss-German Sign Language


Swiss-German Sign Language is the primary deaf sign language of the German-speaking part of Switzerland and of Liechtenstein. The language was established around 1828. In 2011 it was estimated that 7,500 deaf and 13,000 hearing people use DSGS. There are six dialects which developed in boarding schools for the deaf in Zürich, Bern, Basel, Lucerne, and St. Gallen, as well as in Liechtenstein.

Name

In Switzerland, the language is called Gebärdensprache if a distinction from other languages is not required. Some sources call it Natürliche Gebärden or Natürliche Gebärdensprache, or Swiss Sign Language. The former just means 'natural sign', like those for "sleep" or "eat", in contrast to Abstrakte Gebärden 'conceptual sign', and so the term is no longer used. Most English sources today uses the term German-Swiss Sign Language or Swiss-German Sign Language.

Classification

Wittmann suspects that Swiss-German Sign Language may be part of the French Sign Language family, but it is not close and this is not easy to demonstrate.
In Switzerland, the parentage of this language is still in research. Research on whether DSGS could be a derivative of the German Sign Language is planned, but it was observed that DSGS signers are often more open to borrowing loan signs from LSF-SR, the French Sign Language dialect of the Suisse Romande, and less from the DGS.

Literature

Two books have been published in SignWriting.

Manual alphabet

The manual alphabet is similar to that of German Sign Language and American Sign Language, but with the following differences:
  • For F, the upright fingers are parallel/in contact
  • For T, the index finger lies atop the tip of the thumb, as commonly found in other alphabets
  • Informally, X uses the thumb, like C with just the index finger
  • Ä is like A, but the thumb moves out and back a couple times
  • Ö is like O, but it opens to a C shape and closes again a couple times
  • Ü is like U, but the fingers bend down a couple times
  • SCH is as in DGS
  • There is also a CH, which is a C formed with the fingers of H
  • There is no ẞ, as that is rendered SS in Switzerland.