A Grammar of German Sign Language (DGS)

Sign language users of the German Sign Language Community differ greatly in a wide range of sociolinguistic features such as living circumstances, age and migration background. The German population is not centralized as the population of France (in which approx. 20% of the whole French population lives in the metropolitan area of Paris). Instead, Germany has four big cities with over one million habitants (Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Köln) and several hundred cities that are medium-sized. In general, 35% of the German population lives in bigger cities and 42% in medium-sized cities. This means that deaf Germans are settled in big cities as well as in more rural regions. Hence, there are a high number of deaf schools, associations and interest groups in urban and rural areas, which leads to many regional varieties in German Sign Language.

If we look at the age distribution in the German Sign Language Community, we can see that the number of older Deaf people (<65 years and older) and Deaf people with a migration background is comparatively high. With regard to the general demographic change of Germany’s population (the older become older and less babies are born), it can be calculated that 16,000 out of 80,000 deaf persons are more than 65 years old (according to the statistics of the DGB). That means, every fifth deaf person is within this age group. However, it is not clear whether the number of deaf people is actually decreasing due to the forced sterilization of deaf people by the former Nazi government. The advancements in medical technologies and the early medical interventions in (younger) deaf people downsizes the potential members of the German Deaf Community. Older deaf people also sign a variety of DGS that differs from the current mainstream DGS because they were not allowed to sign openly in their school time. Due to the oralist tradition, sign language was forbidden in German deaf schools fifty and more years ago. Hence, deaf senior citizens often use a manual communication system, a form of “Signed Exact German”, called LBG (in German: Lautsprachbegleitendes Gebärden), similar to SEE (Sign Exact English). For example, many elderly deaf do not know the one-handed manual alphabet for finger spelling, which was introduced in the 1980s and is in frequent use in modern German Sign Language today.

The German Sign Language Community is also influenced by migration movements. During World War II, many German speaking Sudetes and Silesian refugees fled to Germany. After the war, immigrants from Turkey, Poland, Greece, and Italy came; and even years later repatriates from Russia and Kazakhstan returned to Germany. In the last 5 years, refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries sought refuge in Germany. So, in general, Germany has a long history of migration. All immigrants bring their culture and language with them. Families migrating also include many deaf members or families who have deaf descendants and who grow up in both cultures. This way deaf immigrants usually grow up in multi-cultural and multi-lingual environments and require a different linguistical approach during their language acquisition in Germany. Around 16,000 deaf members within the German Sign Language Community come from such a multicultural and/or multilingual background, that is 1/5 of all German deaf people. They have sometimes learned DGS, sometimes they use their own country’s sign language (e.g. TID, Turkish Sign Language; PJM, Polish Sign Language; RSL, Russian Sign Language; Syrian Sign Language etc.), or a mixture of DGS and another national sign language, or even International Sign. In some cases, we encounter illiterate and/or semi-lingual Deaf with migration background, because they could not learn a sign language and/or written language before the age of 6. This situation either has its origin in the educational and social circumstances of their background countries and/or the German education system in many cases is not able to offer special resources adapted to their situation.