Finnish Sign Language (suomalainen viittomakieli in Finnish) is the sign language most commonly used in Finland. There are 5000 (estimate) Finnish deaf who have Finnish Sign Language as a mother tongue. Linguistically Finnish Sign Language is closest to Swedish Sign Language, from which it began to separate as an independent language in the middle of the 19th century.
Finnish legislation recognized Finnish Sign Language as one of Finland's domestic languages in 1995 when it was included in the renewed constitution. Finland then became the third country in the world to recognize a sign language as a natural language and the right to use it as a mother tongue.
Courses in "sign language" have been taught in Finland since the 1960s. At that time, instruction taught signs but followed Finnish word order (see Manually Coded Language). Later, as research on sign languages in general and Finnish Sign Language in particular determined that sign languages tend to have a very different grammar to oral languages, the teaching of Finnish Sign Language and "Signed Finnish" have diverged.
Famous quotes containing the words sign language, finnish, sign and/or language:
“The symbolic view of things is a consequence of long absorption in images. Is sign language the real language of Paradise?”
—Hugo Ball (1886–1927)
“A conversation in English in Finnish and in French can not be held at the same time nor with indifference ever or after a time.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“We “need” cancer because, by the very fact of its incurability, it makes all other diseases, however virulent, not cancer.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. “Under the Sign of Cancer,” Myths and Memories (1986)
“There’s a cool web of language winds us in,
Retreat from too much joy or too much fear.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)