Korean Sign Language

Korean Sign Language or KSL ( or ) is the deaf sign language of South Korea. It is often referred to simply as , which means signing in general.

KSL is currently one of the official languages in South Korea, besides Korean.

Beginnings
The beginnings of KSL date from 1889, although standardization efforts have only begun in 2000. The first South Korean school for the deaf was established on April 1, 1913, in Seoul, and it was renamed as the National School for the Deaf in 1945, to be later renamed the Seoul School for the Deaf in 1951.

Commonality
Although the origins of KSL predate the Japanese colonial period (de jure beginning 1910), the sign language developed some features in common with Japanese Sign Language (JSL) grammar when Korea was under Japanese rule.  KSL is considered part of the Japanese Sign Language family.

Users
According to the South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare, there were 252,779 people with hearing impairment and 18,275 people with language disorders in South Korea as of late 2014. Recent estimated figures for the number of deaf people in South Korea range from 180,000 to 300,000. This is approximately  of the population of South Korea.

Official status 
The Korean Sign Language Law (), which was adopted on 3 February 2016 and came into force on 4 August 2016, established Korean Sign Language as an official language for the deaf in South Korea equal in status with Korean. The law also stipulates that the national and local governments are required to provide translation services in Korean Sign Language to deaf individuals who need them. 

The Korean Sign Language is managed and catalogued by the National Institute of the Korean Language (NIKL), which is a government agency tasked with providing authoritative commentary on Korean language in general. The NIKL, along with the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, has worked to standardize KSL starting in 2000, publishing the first official KSL dictionary in 2005, as well as a common phrasebook by 2012.

A searchable, online dictionary for KSL can be found at a NIKL webpage.

Functional markers 
KSL, like other sign languages, incorporates non-manual markers with lexical, syntactic, discourse, and affective functions. These include brow raising and furrowing, frowning, head shaking and nodding, and leaning and shifting the torso.

See also
 Korean manual alphabet

Notes

References
 Brentari, Diane. (2010). Sign Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ;  OCLC 428024472
 Wittmann, Henri (1991). "Classification linguistique des langues signées non vocalement," Revue québécoise de linguistique théorique et appliquée. Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 215–288, 283.

External links
Korean Sign Language Dictionary 

Category:Japanese Sign Language family
Category:Languages of South Korea