A sign language is a language that uses the visual-manual modality, hand movements combined with facial expression and body posture, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are full natural languages with their own grammar and vocabulary, and are not the same as body language.
Key takeaways
- Sign languages are full natural languages with their own grammar and lexicon, not gestures or a code for spoken words.
- British Sign Language and American Sign Language are quite different and mutually unintelligible, even though the UK and the US share English.
- Our map covers spoken languages: sign languages are left out, along with extinct and artificial languages.
- The map's 6,722 living languages are spoken languages from Glottolog, retrieved 13 October 2026.
How sign languages work
Sign languages, also called signed languages, use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning. They combine movements of the hands with non-manual markers such as facial expression and body posture [1]. They are not body language, which is a kind of nonverbal communication [1].
Linguistic study has shown that sign languages have the fundamental properties of all languages, including duality of patterning and recursion, and they are described as full natural languages with their own grammar and lexicon [1]. They are largely independent of the spoken languages around them. Their grammar usually does not resemble that of the local spoken language, though they do borrow from it, mainly by fingerspelling proper names [1].
That independence is why one spoken language can sit beside several unrelated signed languages, and one sign language can serve places with many spoken ones. British Sign Language and American Sign Language are quite different and mutually unintelligible, although the United Kingdom and the United States share English. South Africa has 11 official spoken languages but only one sign language, with two variants [1].
Each country generally has its own native sign language, and some have more than one. The exact number is unknown: Ethnologue's 2021 edition lists 150, and the SIGN-HUB Atlas of Sign Language Structures lists over 200 and notes that more remain undocumented [1]. Wherever Deaf and hard-of-hearing people live, sign languages develop.
What our map does and does not show
The map covers spoken languages. Our homepage notes that Glottolog also lists extinct languages, sign languages and artificial languages, which are left out. We show 6,722 living spoken languages, 4,008 of them drawn as areas and 2,714 as dots, from Glottolog retrieved 13 October 2026.
The omission is deliberate. The map is built from atlases that show where a spoken language is traditionally spoken, and a sign language does not fit that model: a community of signers is tied to people, schools and institutions, not to a traditional territory. If you search the map for a sign language you will not find one. Sign languages also do not fit neatly into the totals in how many languages are there, where the answer depends on what a source chooses to count [1].
You can browse what is covered on the languages page and the facts page.
The thing people get wrong
The most common mistake is to think a sign language is a signed version of the local spoken language, so that an English-speaking country must use "English signs". As the BSL and ASL example shows, it does not work that way: they are separate languages with their own grammar. A second mistake is to think there is one universal sign language. There is not.
Frequently asked questions
Is there one international sign language?
No. Each country generally has its own native sign language, and some have more than one. British Sign Language and American Sign Language, for example, are mutually unintelligible.
Are sign languages on the map?
No. The map shows spoken languages only. Glottolog also lists sign languages, but they are left out because the map is built from areas where a language is traditionally spoken.
Sources
- Sign language, Wikipedia.
- Every figure from our own map is worked out from the datasets on the data sources page (checked against Glottolog and Glottography, retrieved 13 October 2026).