Danish Sign Language - Classification

Classification

Wittmann (1991) assigned DSL to the French Sign Language family because of similarities in vocabulary. However, the founder of the first deaf school in Denmark, Peter Atke Castberg (in 1807), was receptive to local sign and so may have introduced FSL signs to the local language rather than FSL itself.

Norwegian Sign Language is generally thought to be a descendant of DSL. However, it may well be a mixture of DSL and indigenous sign, parallel to the situation between Swedish Sign and Finnish Sign.

Icelandic Sign Language is closer; 37% of a set of analyzed signs (Aldersson 2006) were completely different in structure and a further 16% were similar but not the same. Faeroese and Greenlandic Sign are more clearly dialects of DSL.