| Portuguese Sign Language | |
| Nativename: | LGP, Língua gestual portuguesa |
| Speakers: | 60,000 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Sign |
| Fam1: | Swedish Sign |
| Iso3: | psr |
| Glotto: | port1277 |
| Glottorefname: | Portuguese Sign Language |
Portuguese Sign language is a sign language used mainly by deaf people in Portugal.
It is recognized in the present Constitution of Portugal.[1] It was significantly influenced by Swedish Sign Language, through a school for the Deaf that was established in Lisbon by Swedish educator Pär Aron Borg.[2] [3]
Portuguese Sign is the basis of Cape Verdian Sign,[4] it has also slightly influenced Guinea-Bissau Sign[5] and some reports have said that São Tomé and Príncipe Sign Language has considerable mutual intelligibility with Portuguese Sign.[6]
It is also reported that Portuguese Sign has been also used in Angola.[7]
The Portuguese Sign Language has its origins from the Swedish Sign Language (LGS), as in the 19th century, the king called to Portugal Pär Aron Borg, a Swede who had founded an institute for the education of the deaf in Sweden. In 1823, the first school for the deaf was made in Portugal.[8] Although many signs were transported from Swedish Sign to Portuguese sign, thus sharing a common root, it has evolved autonomously and become very distinct from the sign language used in Sweden.[9]