Talk:New Zealand Sign Language

New Zealand Sign Language in action
The New Zealand Sign Language in action section of this article reads like it was written by a person who is not a native user of the language in question. If this language is like ASL, most of this section is mistaken or misleading. ASL suffered under many of the same misapprehensions seemingly present in this section for much of its history. It is not hard for a skilled interpreter to keep up with a speaker without leaving out any information in ASL and probably not in this sign language either. That there is no one-to-one correspondence between the words in two seperate languages with seperate grammar and syntax systems does not mandate that information is being left out. Qaz 17:39, 23 August 2005 (UTC)


 * The article is pretty simplistic. Translating is certainly more complex than just leaving words out, changing the order of words in sentences, abbrevriating, and fingerspelling words without signs. But still information is always lost. Usually quite a lot.
 * I'm familiar with Auslan, rather than NZSL, but the two are very similiar. While the section does read poorly, it's more or less true that an interpreter usually is required to simplify what is being said. From what I understand, the best interpreters will only be able to convey 60% of what is said. From my experience, the largest factors seem to be the speed at which the speaker talks, and the amount of jargon or technical terms being used. Different interpreters have different styles and abilities too, but that seems to be a lesser issue. I don't think any interpreter could keep up with, say, a fast-speaking ecofeminist reading from notes in a talk on gender-sensitive socio-ecological research, especially if they are unfamiliar with the topic (I've seen similiar attempted). Certainly not everything is conveyed even in slower paced talks, as it is tedious and unnecessary to convey all nuances. Better interpreters are only better at knowing what to leave out so the essential message is left in tact. Auslan/NZSL (and ASL too I believe) have much smaller lexicons than the rediculiously large range of words in English, often requiring a particularly creative and expressive interpreter to convey the original meaning with any fidelity. None of this is to say that Auslan/NZSL is less expressive or slower than English (that's another topic entirely), only that translating into Auslan from English is usually slower than speaking English straight, or necessarily leads to information loss when spoken at the same speed. I imagine the above is true for ASL too.
 * &mdash;Pengo 04:56, 10 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm going to take this section out. Public interpretation is only a small part of NZSL in action. The writer is obviously a hearing person who was impressed by what they saw, but says nothing true of NZSL different from other SLs, and I'm not even sure that the "translation" is accurate. I'd have said it was "you name ? you" where "?" is a facial expression (I'm hearing and have 2 terms of NZSL but not fluent). --Hugh7 21:31, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Just a comment on YOU NAME? or YOU NAME WHAT. It would be better to have a Deaf person comment on this, and I have forwarded the link to some I know. As a qualified interpreter, I write from my own experience and knowledge learnt from Deaf community members, Deaf and hearing academics and other interpreting practioners.

Anyway, in English, to find out who someone is we can ask, "What's your name?", "What is your name?", "What name do you go by?", or even "Who are you?".

In NZSL, there is also more than one way to ask. Below are examples: PRO2 = 2nd person pronoun, ie, 'YOU'; 'wh' indicates the full sentence is a wh-question (who, what, when, where, how).

__________wh-q

YOU NAME WHAT

__________wh-q

YOUR NAME WHAT

__________wh-q

NAME WHAT PRO2

________wh

WHO (PRO2)

The wh-q bit is important because in NZSL wh questions are formed with furrowed eyebrows -- if you forget to furrow your eyebrows then your intended question looks like a plain statement, which may confuse the person you're chatting with. For example, consider the difference in English between:

You have a car? You have a car.

In NZSL, these can be glossed as:

________wh-q

HAVE CAR YOU

HAVE CAR YOU

Aleniboy 16:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

What happened?
The article says the bill to make NZSL NZ's third official language "was referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee which will report back to the House on July 26, 2005." Anyone got an update? Moriori 02:15, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

New Zealand English
I have a question: this article says New Zealand English is the official language of New Zealand. To me that implies that the particular form of English as spoken in NZ is the official language of New Zealand instead of just English, and furthermore that New Zealand English vastly differs from "standard" English (therefore the neccessity to specify that NZ English is an official language). To put it differently, the article reads like as if NZ English is so different from English as, for example, Swiss German from standard German, and that this supposedly very different form of English is the official language (among others) of NZ. I know the former is not the case, but what about the latter. Is really the NZ English recognised as one official language, or is rather just English? I mean in Canada, English is recognised as one official language, not Canadian English. (I hope I made myself clear) Blur4760 17:28, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 * We have our own weird usages of words and pronounciation (we tend to be pretty bad on this). But it does not differ that much, less than American English to UK English. --Midnighttonight 21:05, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 * English is only a de facto official language of New Zealand. For a long time Maori was the only "official" language. However, the statute that made Maori an official language was in English, but because of the dominance of English, nobody has ever bothered to sanction English as an official language. --Limegreen 02:44, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
 * It would be hard to claim that English is not an official language of New Zealand since almost all our official documents are written in English! Ben Arnold 03:40, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
 * It would be easy enough to make an argument that NZSL is more official than English! After all, NZSL only requires royal assent. You will find far less in the way of documentation to make English official. However, just because it isn't officially sanctioned, doesn't mean that it has no status.--Limegreen 04:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Unique
What makes NZSL unique from Australian or British? The article doesn't seem to say. Rmhermen 17:46, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 * it includes Maori words as well, but I'm not to sure other than that. --Midnighttonight 21:06, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 * read the article, New Zealand English, and you will learn it's just a different quirky dialect, just like American, Canadian, or Australian English.
 * This article is about NZSL, not English. As well as the signs for Maori concepts, NZSL has more lip-shapes cuing the handshapes. I've added that. It also has signs for NZ cities and other places. EG, the sign for Rotorua references mudpools, for Wellington the wind. --Hugh7 22:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

First Official Sign Language?
As of my writing, most of the article deals with NZSL's status as an official language of NZ. What is the precedence for this? Are there other countries with a nonverbal/sign languages as an official language? Also, what does it mean for a language to be an offical language in NZ? Is there any practical implications? -- 20:07, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Not sure but I think it is the first. It gives significant access in dealing with the government, Parliament must now have a translator avialable for instance.  But Sign Language was treated as a de facto official language until now really. --Midnighttonight 21:08, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Not official
I've taken out references to it being official, since the article says it hasn't received royal assent. 202.175.143.143 00:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC) (User:Ben Arnold not logged in)

Note also that the New Zealand Sign Language will be an official language of New Zealand from the day after the date of royal assent. At least that's the only coherent interpretation I can come to from the markup on the bill. The other dates have already passed.202.175.143.143 00:23, 7 April 2006 (UTC) (User:Ben Arnold not logged in)

Some editors have been changing the page to say that New Zealand Sign Language is an official language of New Zealand. Since the third reading was on Thursday and adjurned at 5:48pm, and assent is usually delayed by a few days it seems implausible that it received assent by Friday. (Besides, the page on Royal Assent states that assent must be notified to Parliament and Parliament didn't sit on Friday.) If you have evidence that Royal Assent occured on Friday, please provide that evidence before you update the page. Otherwise please bide your time until the day after royal assent. Thanks. Ben Arnold 01:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Hello, please read what I have below. Also, this is the direct, copy-and-paste headline from the news on the homepage: "The New Zealand Parliament passes an act making New Zealand Sign Language the third official language of New Zealand, alongside English and Māori."

Re: Not Official
Well, it says on the en.Wikipedia.org homepage that it has become an official language. As for the royal assent stuff, I have no idea.


 * Technically the main page says that "an act making NZSL the third official language" has been passed by Parliament. This is almost true (in fact Parliament passed a bill &mdash; it doesn't become an act until it receives royal assent). I agree the main page is misleading, because it suggests that NZSL has already become an official language, but it's only actually wrong on a minor technicality. Ben Arnold 02:32, 8 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, thank you.
 * Thanks Ben. I got the difference between a Bill and an Act wrong when I wrote it up for Current events, but I was aware that its being passed didn't mean it was immediately in effect.-gadfium 02:35, 8 April 2006 (UTC)


 * It's hard to summarise an article and keep it both easy-to-read and 100% technically accurate. I think "passes an act" is a pretty standard idiom, "passes a bill" would have looked strange. Ben Arnold 19:38, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll ring the Clerk's office on Monday and find out when royal assent is scheduled for. Ben Arnold 19:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The home page was what originally caused me to "update" the page, saying that it was an official language. I see now that it needs the Royal Assent to do so. I'll post a notice at administrator's notes and incidents explaining the situation and directing them over here, because someone might want to change that - it really is very misleading. -zappa 18:29, 9 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I posted something here and here. zappa 02:52, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * It was changed from "making" into "to make", so it is a little bit better now, although still confusing. -zappa

According to official language, a language must be either declared official, or be the language of the constitution. On those grounds, it would seem that Sign Language will be NZ's second official language, joining Maori. This is because English has neither been declared official, nor do we have a language of the constitution, leaving English as a de facto only. I'd originally meant this facetiously, but it now seems that perhaps the text should be modified (NB: New Zealand is not the only country to not have an official language). --Limegreen 03:13, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I have just talked to Parliament and the Cabinet Office and they have confirmed that the bill has not yet received assent. Apparently it was sent to Government House today (10 April), but they might be having a function on so it might not be signed until tomorrow. It also looks like the PDF on the Clerk's website is being updated regularly, so it may be a good source for these kinds of things in future. Ben Arnold 04:45, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * According to the Governor-General's programme, it was meant to be signed at 14:45 on Monday 10 April. Does anyone know if it has been presented to Parliament yet? -- Avenue 01:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I've now learned that Parliament doesn't sit again until 2 May, but apparently the Governor-General usually just sends the Speaker a message confirming their assent. -- Avenue 03:35, 11 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Hidden away on the Governor-General's website: she did give Assent to the bill yesterday. So it would have became law today, unless she hasn't informed the Speaker yet. -- Avenue 08:33, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

From zappa's talk page
You've edited the NZSL article claiming that NZSL is now an official language of New Zealand. From what I can gather about the royal assent process this seems highly unlikely. If you have evidence that royal assent has already been given to the New Zealand Sign Language Bill could you please point me to it?

Just some background. The bill doesn't become law in New Zealand until the Governor-General signs it (known as royal assent). Furthermore this particular bill contains a section stating the it doesn't come into effect until the day after royal assent. From what I can gather about royal assent, it looks like it generally happens on a Monday or Thursday. Also it may be that it only occurs when Parliament's sitting. Parliament is taking a break for Easter now, so we may be waiting until 2 May for NZSL to become an official language.

Ben Arnold 02:08, 8 April 2006 (UTC)


 * My bad. I thought something was fishy, but decided to update the article to what I thought was true at the time.  On the front page, it said that it had just been made the official language - nothing about waiting for royal assent.  I read through the article, but it referred to the royal assent as a "constitutional formality", which may be sort of degrading to its legal importance.  Anyways, after reading that, I figured it was not a legal process anymore, just something for show.  But I guess I trust Wikipedia's front page, so I updated it.  Guess I should've dont more research.  Thanks, zappa 22:50, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The paragraph titled "Dialects"
I don't think the heading 'Dialects' is appropriate. There is no (socio)linguistic research that supports the idea of NZSL having dialects in the sense that other 'standard' languages are said to have dialects.

Yes, there is certainly language variation -- for example the concept of 'people', as in a group of individuals, can be represnted by at least 2 lexemes but there is no research yet to show how, when or why either is used or not used. There is little research to account for the factors that influence this sociolinguistic variation -- factors such as age, areas lived in + school attended (regional variables), age NZSL learnt (native signer, non-native, etc). A 3 year project is currently under way at the Deaf Studies Research Unit, Victoria University of Wellington, (www.vuw.ac.nz) that is looking in to sociolinguistic variation.

NZSL users anecdotally discuss the variation they see (and there seems to be a lot of it), and there is an acceptance of the amount of variety in NZSL by its users (though predictable less so by some learners!). But to imply that the known variation due to school indicates dialects within NZSL is not accurate.

The title is misleading and should be changed.

Aleniboy 15:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

So far as I know they are mutually intelligible. I'm going to change it to Variants. --Hugh7 06:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Trilingual translation
Tariana Turia's speech when the NZSL bill came up for its second reading stresses the need for translators between the/te reo Māori language and NZSL. It would be interesting to read something about the unique challenges of learning/using NZSL when your first language isn't English. I'm guessing that NZSL, being partly based on BSL, uses the mouthing of English words along with some signs, to differentiate 'language', say, from 'linguistics'.

Would anyone be able to write on this topic? I am neither a sign language user, nor a New Zealander, let alone a NZSL user and Maori, so I don't know if it is a significant issue for Maori NZSL users. Justinep 15:39, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Citation on NZSL-BSL-ASL comparisons for someone to enter
If anyone knows how to enter citations (I can't work it out), this is the citation/reference for the statistical info comparing NZSL to BSL and ASL mentioned in the second paragraph of the artice. Incidentally, if you do a search for "62.5% NZSL BSL" on Google Books Search, you will see a scanned copy of the relevant book and article.

McKee, D. and G. Kennedy. 2000. "Lexical Comparisons of Signs from American, Australian, British, and New Zealand Sign Languages" In K. Emmorey & H. Lane (eds) The Signs of Language Revisited: An Anthology to Honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Aleniboy (talk) 21:54, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Done. Aleniboy, all you need to do is enclose your reference in tags. Thx for doing the hard work! ;-) yoyo (talk) 18:52, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed standardised format for pages describing sign languages
Given this page is linked to the WikiProject Deaf, you may be interested to know that there is a proposed project there to have a standardised format for describing sign languages. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deaf and go to "Projects". To view the draft template, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Languages/Template_(sign_language). The proposed template is in my view a good one and would help tidy this page up and allow for more language/linguistics orientated descriptions Aleniboy (talk) 14:41, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

School for deaf no longer?
This reference Lopdell Gallery implies the Titirangi School for the Deaf listed is now a gallery ...I'm not even sure about St Dominic's (there's a St Joseph's now at 1--Billymac00 (talk) 22:41, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Contradiction
"...with no linguistic connection to a spoken or written language..."

"Christchurch - 2 Cs, represents ChCh."

The latter phrase would appear to contradict the former. Tsuguya (talk) 08:37, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Strictly speaking, you're right. It's a pretty rare example, and to say that it proved the rule wrong would be like saying that the word "orangutan" is a linguistic connection between English and Indonesian.--Hugh7 (talk) 01:12, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

The forms of some letters in NZSL fingerspelling obviously mimic the written forms of English. This would appear to be a direct connection to a written language. --Ds13 (talk) 19:46, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

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