A Universal Sign Language!

The daftest thing I have ever heard is that the sign language used in Ireland is different from BSL, British Sign Language. What if there was a universal sign language taught worldwide and learned by everyone hearing and non-hearing alike?
 
It would make alot more sense than teaching people a sign language that knowingly separates the deaf based on place of birth. The threat of deaf revolution is relatively minor
 
The problem is that sign languages are languages, and creating a universal sign language would much of the same problems as creating a universal spoken language.

First, you have to convince everyone that your language is better than theirs. Then... well, really that's the biggest step.

This isn't like a Morse Code or something, where it's simply a matter of governments and industries getting together to agree on some standard protocol. Sign languages are living human languages, with people who have been speaking all of their lives.

I'm fairly certain that the languages weren't designed specifically to separate people based on their place of birth. They are different because they have their origins in different deaf cultural movements in separate places.
 
I'm deaf myself and I know the problems, you see sign language is like spoken language. No one universal language has appeared, although English comes close. With sign language there is a bigger gulf because of gestures. The British Sign Language is an "dialect" of British, Australian and New Zealander Sign Language. The sign language evolved in different places like spoken language.
 
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