The aspects of New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) work by many Deaf people in New Zealand. As a deaf linguist, I am learning to understand many different sign languages from the world. I decided to post the video clips with English captions in here and you will see how NZSL work. NZSL is a real language to many Deaf people, not just mimes and gestures.

There are 129 phonetic handshapes and these phonetic handshapes break down into 28 hand shape categories such as closed fist shapes. There are five formational parameters of signs which are handshape, the location, the movement, the orientation and the non-manual signals. Yes, we do have classifiers, pronominalised (pointing) signs, conditionals, fingerspelling, modality, questions, referential shift/role shift, verbs, numerals, affirmation and negation signs in the NZSL.

There is the non-manual aspect of sign language – movements of the head, shoulders, raising or lowering of the eyebrows, movements of the cheeks, tongue and lips.

The sentence structure and the ordering of ideas – see video ‘Sign Structure in a sentence as their first language’. In this video, it is about communicating over the plans or intentions. The sentence structure which is subject-verb (S-V) OR subject-verb-object (SVO).

Do we have lexicalisation in the NZSL? Yes, there are plenty of signs from one English word such as: –

jewellery = NZSL for a necklace, ring, bracelet

liquid = NZSL for water/milk/beer

disaster – NZSL for earthquake/air crash/car accident

Another type of lexicalising where NZSL makes use of negation some concepts such as;-

English ‘raw’ = NZSL not + cooked

‘incomplete’ = NZSL not + finish

sometimes there is a couple of sign into one concept of a word such as:-

English ‘a patient’ = NZSL sick + person