"BASL" redirects here. For another use, see Bar Association of Sri Lanka.
Black American Sign Language
Fingerspelling of "BASL"
Native to
United States
Region
North America
Language family
French Sign–based (possibly a creole)
American Sign Language
Black American Sign Language
Language codes
ISO 639-3
–
Glottolog
None
IETF
ase-blasl, sgn-ase-blasl (deprecated)[1]
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Black American Sign Language (BASL) or Black Sign Variation (BSV) is a dialect of American Sign Language (ASL)[2] used most commonly by deaf African Americans in the United States. The divergence from ASL was influenced largely by the segregation of schools in the American South. Like other schools at the time, schools for the deaf were segregated based upon race, creating two language communities among deaf signers: black deaf signers at black schools and white deaf signers at white schools. As of the mid 2010s,[update] BASL is still used by signers in the South despite public schools having been legally desegregated since 1954.
Linguistically, BASL differs from other varieties of ASL in its phonology, syntax, and vocabulary. BASL tends to have a larger signing space, meaning that some signs are produced further away from the body than in other dialects. Signers of BASL also tend to prefer two-handed variants of signs, while signers of ASL tend to prefer one-handed variants. Some signs are different in BASL as well, with some borrowings from African American English.
^"Language Subtag Registry". IETF. Retrieved 28 August 2023.
^Ethnologue 2015, American Sign Language.
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