French Sign Language (langue des signes française or LSF) is the sign language of the deaf in the nation of France. According to Ethnologue, it has 50,000 to 100,000 native signers.
French Sign Language is related and partially ancestral to Dutch Sign Language (NGT), German Sign Language (DGS), Flemish Sign Language (VGT), Belgian-French Sign Language (LSFB), Irish Sign Language (ISL), American Sign Language (ASL), Quebec Sign Language (LSQ), and Russian Sign Language (RSL).
Read more about French Sign Language: History
Famous quotes containing the words french, sign and/or language:
“But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his Lordship, I think, to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of his mother-tongue. He talks here of command and counsel as if he were no Englishman, nor knew any difference between their significations.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“The windows were then closed and the steam turned on. There was a sign up saying that no one could smoke, but you couldn’t help it. You were lucky if you didn’t burst into flames.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“I invented the colors of the vowels!—A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green—I made rules for the form and movement of each consonant, and, and with instinctive rhythms, I flattered myself that I had created a poetic language accessible, some day, to all the senses.”
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891)