Language Atlas

How Languages Connect
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Language Family

Namibian Sign Language

African Language Families

Namibian Sign Language is a sign language used by an estimated 8,000 people in Namibia and Angola as of 2008, and other sign languages are presumed to exist in the same countries. It developed from the Paget Gorman Sign System introduced by South African-trained teachers at a Lutheran deaf school opened around 1970 in Engela, whose students combined the imported signs with their own Ovambo grammar, and the language later spread to Angola in 1982 through a school for the Namibian exile community, absorbing further influence from American and Swedish Sign Language along the way.

Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.