Editing New Zealand Sign Language (section)

==History==
{{BANZSL family tree}}
The early British immigrants to New Zealand who were deaf brought [[British Sign Language]] with them. The first known teacher of sign language was Dorcas Mitchell, who taught the children of one family in Charteris Bay, [[Lyttelton Harbour]], from 1868 to 1877. By 1877 she had taught 42 pupils.

When the first school for the deaf (then called the Sumner [[Deaf-mute|Deaf and Dumb]] Institution) was opened at Sumner, south east of Christchurch in 1878, Mitchell applied unsuccessfully for the position of principal. Instead it went to Gerrit Van Asch, who agreed with the Milan congress of deaf educators of 1880 (to which no deaf people were invited) that teaching should be oral only, and that sign language should be forbidden. (He would not even admit pupils who could sign, so only 14 were admitted.) This was the policy of the school until 1979. A [[documentary film]] about the school made in the 1950s makes no mention of sign language. Similar policies were maintained at the schools at Titirangi and Kelston that opened in 1940 and 1958.

Unsurprisingly, the children used sign language secretly and after leaving school, developing NZSL out of British Sign Language largely without adult intervention for over 100 years.<ref>{{Cite web |last=McKee |first=Rachel |date=25 August 2020 |title=New Zealand Sign Language |url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/new-zealand-sign-language |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=Te Ara |language=en}}</ref> The main haven for NZSL was the Deaf Clubs in the main centres. In 1979, "Total Communication" (a "use anything that works" philosophy) was adopted at the Sumner School, but the signing it used was "Australasian Sign Language" an artificial [[signed English|signed form of English]]. As a result, younger signers use a number of Australasian signs in their NZSL, to such an extent that some call traditional NZSL "Old Sign". NZSL was adopted for teaching in 1994.

In 1985, Marianne Ahlgren proved in her [[PhD]] [[thesis]] at [[Victoria University of Wellington]] that NZSL is a fully-fledged
language, with a large vocabulary of signs and a consistent grammar of space.

{{anchor|NZSLTA}}The New Zealand Sign Language Teachers Association (NZSLTA – formerly known as the New Zealand Sign Language Tutors Association) was set up in 1992. Over the next few years [[adult education]] classes in NZSL began in several centres. In 1997 a Certificate in Deaf Studies programme was started at Victoria University of Wellington, with instruction actually in NZSL, designed to teach deaf people how to competently teach NZSL to the wider public. Also in 1992 an interpreter training programme was established at the Auckland Institute of Technology, now known as [[Auckland University of Technology]]. This programme was first directed and taught by Dr Rachel Locker McKee (hearing) and Dr David McKee (deaf) and came about due to lobbying by the New Zealand Deaf Community and others who recognised the need for safer and more professional interpreting services.  They had as early as 1984 sought support for more research to determine the need for sign language interpreters.<ref>Dugdale, Patricia (2001). Talking Hands, Listening Eyes. Deaf Association of New Zealand</ref> Other than a one-off course run in 1985, this was the first time a professional training programme with a qualification was offered in New Zealand. Many of those who have gone on to work as professional NZSL interpreters began their journey in NZSL community classes taught by members of the NZSLTA.

An important step toward the recognition of NZSL was the publication in 1998 of a comprehensive NZSL [[dictionary]] by Victoria University of Wellington and the Deaf Association of NZ. It contains some 4000 signs (which correspond to many more meanings than the same number of English words, because of the way signs can be modulated in space and time), sorted by handshape, not English meaning, and coded in the Hamburg Notational System, [[HamNoSys]], as well as pictorially.  In 2011, Victoria University launched an Online Dictionary of New Zealand Sign Language<ref>{{cite web|url=http://nzsl.vuw.ac.nz/|title=The Online Dictionary of New Zealand Sign Language – NZSL Online|website=nzsl.vuw.ac.nz|access-date=8 May 2017}}</ref> based on the original 1998 work, which includes video clips of each sign with examples and the ability to search for signs based on features of the sign (handshape, location, etc.) as well as the sign's English gloss.

For some years, [[TVNZ]] broadcast a weekly news programme, "News Review", interpreted in NZSL. This was discontinued in 1993 after a joint survey of deaf and [[Hearing impairment|hearing-impaired]] people found a majority favoured captioned programmes. Many Deaf people felt they had been misled by the survey. There has been no regular programming in NZSL since.

Between August 2012 to August 2013 the Human Rights Commission carried out an inquiry into the use and promotion of New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL). The inquiry has focused on working with key government agencies and the Deaf community around the inquiry's three terms of reference 1) The right to education for deaf people and potential users of NZSL. 2) The rights of deaf people, and other potential users of NZSL, to access communication, information and services, and the right to freedom of expression and opinion, through the provision of professional NZSL interpreter services and other NZSL services and resources. 3) The promotion and maintenance of NZSL as an official language of New Zealand. The full report of the inquiry, ''A New Era in the Right to Sign'', was launched in Parliament by the Minister for Disability Issues, Tariana Turia, on 3 September 2013.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.hrc.co.nz/files/8014/2356/7275/A-New-Era-in-the-Right-to-Sign-for-web.pdf|title=A New Era in the Right to Sign|website=www.hrc.co.nz|access-date=10 August 2019}}</ref>