Gestuno

In 1951, the World Federation of the Deaf (WFH) appeared, and it was then that the participants of the first World Deaf Congress decided to standardize sign languages . The need for such a peculiar “gestural Esperanto ” is caused by the fact that social workers and public figures from among the inaudible people participate in the work of congresses, conferences, symposia on the problems of deafness together with laryngologists, audiologists, psychologists, teachers, engineers, and other specialists.

On behalf of the WFG Bureau, a group of experts, in which the Soviet representative also participated, based on the community of speech gestures of deaf people from different countries (similar gestures from different countries of Europe were selected or fixed) developed for a quarter of a century a common international sign language. The first sign-up dictionary was published in 1965 and contained 300 gestures; in 1973, the World Federation of the Deaf released a dictionary of simplified sign language; The 3rd edition of 1975 included already 1,500 gestures.

At the VII World Congress on Deafness in Washington in 1975, the international sign language, or gestuno (English International Sign Language, gestuno) - the international sign system, was adopted and approved (along with English and French, the official languages ​​of the World Federation of the Deaf). operating within the framework of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFH).

The program for the development, development and improvement of the gestuno, of course, requires many years of hard work, concerted action by experts and targeted funding. Now at European international meetings and conferences of the deaf they use this language. However, Russia is not part of the European countries, so these changes were not affected.

It should be noted that there were several problems with using gestures:

• none of the dictionaries published described the grammatical basis of the system;
• the use of gestures in context was not disclosed;
• artificial principles of the formation of new vocabulary are not explained;
• vocabulary vocabulary was fully based on four sign languages ​​- British, Italian, American and Russian;
• there were no gestures from Asian, African and South American national sign languages.

An international gesture system is called informal communication between deaf people from around the world. It can be argued that, unlike the gesture, international gesture communication appeared and developed in a natural way.

The WFG expert group attempted to identify strategies for communicating with native speakers of a foreign sign language, during which the use of natural gestures, iconic gestures, a large number of repetitions, the use of drawings and inscriptions, grammatical and lexical elements of national sign languages ​​were noted. Therefore, the freer the deaf speaks the national sign language, the easier international communication is given to him.

Geilman I.F. Meet: Hand Speech. - M .: Zagrey, 2001 .-- S. 10.