Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Northern Ireland Sign Language

Northern Ireland Sign Language

I am opening this nomination on behalf of an IP user, 86.134.175.128 (talk · contribs), who claims that the article is a hoax and that the language does not exist. I am reproducing our conversation thus far below for convenience.

(86.134.175.128 (talk) 17:24, 20 June 2008 (UTC)) The page NISL needs to be deleted the information is factually incorrect there is no such language such as NISL. A few of the universities in the UK and Ireland have found no such language and the comments "Unionist BSL users (mainly members of the British Deaf Association") is offensive I am surprised a highly respected organisation such as the BDA which has worked worldwide is allowed to be riddiculed in this way.

I am a bit sceptical, since there are some online sites which mention NISL, such as [1] and [2]. Are you claiming that all these sites have also fallen victim to the hoax? Gail (talk) 17:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

(86.134.175.128 (talk) 14:31, 21 June 2008 (UTC))Unfortunately yes if you see [3] the NI government are currently working with numerous deaf organisations who all agree on ISL and BSL however NISL does not exist. DCAl are the department solely taskedd with languages and currently deal with all the contraversial languages already it would be a major political issue if they missed NISL if it actually existed!! Some of your references refer to NISL before the official state of NI actually existed so how can Northern Ireland Sign Language exist before Northern Ireland? I am happy to provide further info if necessary.

Gail (talk) 14:44, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep if reliable sources can be found. What I've found in a cursory search is that "NISL", to the extent that it can be defined, is essentially a dialect of British Sign Language. At least one source indicates that Northern Ireland's Catholic community tends to use ISL while the Protestants prefer BSL. Sorting this out according to NPOV will be challenging, of course. --Dhartung | Talk 21:18, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete if reliable sources are not found. WillOakland (talk) 22:27, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The global-lingo.com link referred to in Gail's comment of 17:40, 20 June 2008 is using the Wikipedia article as its source, making that reference invalid. The other link (Irish Deaf Kids) states BSL is the primary sign language of Northern Ireland with BSL only being used in Britain. However this disagrees with the British Government and legal position which both recognise BSL as the most widely used sign language in Northern Ireland.[4] The discrepancy between the two sources would seem to agree with Dhartung's finding that NISL is either a dialect of BSL or just an alternative name for BSL when used in Northern Ireland. The article's claim that NISL has official recognition certainly appears to be incorrect as only BSL and ISL were recognised by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in March 2004.[5] Road Wizard (talk) 22:40, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I had referred to the global-lingo.com page not just because it mentions NISL, but because it claims to "offer interpreters trained in" it. Another document I found is this school publication, which claims that its students "are also taught Northern Ireland Sign Language (NISL)" (pg. 33). Finally, I may have also found a source which qualifies under WP:RS and confirms the contentious status of NISL: Topics in Signed Language Interpreting: Theory And Practice by Terry Janzen, specifically pages 256 and 265, which quote a primary source written by Shane O Heorpa (can't find it online). Is that source sufficient for retaining the article? Gail (talk) 16:51, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I can't access the secondary sources you mentioned, but this may be the primary source being referred to.[6] It states that:

"NISL is what many people refer to as "BSL" - but just because NISL use the BSL alphabet and a lot of BSL signs doesnt mean its BSL itself - as it does have a LARGE number of ASL signs in NISL... and also a large number of ISL signs - of course our local signs too.

There is a big debate in Northern Ireland about whether we can use the term NISL or BSL - but my work, the SLCB, will use the term NISL - in sensitive areas, we will say NISL (NI-BSL) - its a very political issue".

With the contentious nature of this issue editors will need to be very careful about what statements the sources can support if the article is kept. Road Wizard (talk) 17:15, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]