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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Northern Ireland Sign Language

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep based on apparently reliable sources. I say "apparently" through having viewed them; however if there is a ridiculously complex hoax occurring here, please feel free to bring back to AFD. Black Kite 01:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Northern Ireland Sign Language

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Northern Ireland Sign Language (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

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]
No, the primary source was an academic publication:
  • O Heorpa, Shane (2003). What is NISL? A Northern Ireland Sign Language? IASLI Newsletter, 4 (3). Dublin: Irish Association of Sign Language Interpreters.
What you pasted roughly corresponds to what is stated in the secondary source, which goes into more detail on the subject (about 1 full page). Could you please check whether you can access it through this link and then navigating to pages 256 and 265 manually? Gail (talk) 17:55, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I still can't access page 265 for some reason (must be some setting on my computer causing a problem) but I have read page 256. I have taken the liberty of rewriting the article based on the sources. I have tried to aim for a neutral balance given that the NISL acronym is disputed and not officially recognised. Road Wizard (talk) 19:28, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(86.134.175.128 (talk) 17:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)) DELETE —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.175.128 (talk) 20:02, 23 June 2008 (UTC) Global-lingo cannot claim to have interpreters trained in NISL as there are no courses or interpreter training in that language CACDP the examining body for sign language qualifications and who is linked to the register of interpreters in the UK IRP only train in BSL and ISL.[reply]

I can dismiss the comment in the school publication as it is an Irish medium school and it would be politically foolish to mention anything British in their publications despite that BSL has no political allegiances as a language. The Department for Employment and Learning the government department responsible for work and education has recently announced money for the training of BSL and ISL tutors and interpreters [7]

So I would not be surprised if all schools have to clarify the language they use as it would make the Government look foolish by deliberately excluding a language especially one that is supposed to be a NI language?

All the references which highlight NISL are written by Shane Oheorpa, who was reported to have started the SLCB but the only description of this organisation is on Wikipedia another website highlights an address but on investigation there is no organisation there. Mr Oheorpa may feel he uses NISL (I am not sure if he does) but I cannot find any references that anyone else does. I wanted to refer to IASLI for further clarification but they dissolved in Dec 2007 as reported in the WASLI newsletter but IASLI (Republic of Ireland) ASLI for (England Wales and NI) and SASLI (Scotland) are all the professional organisations for Sign Language Interpreters and none of them mention NISL other than the article Mr Oheorpa wrote in the IASLI newsletter I am not sure if this is an academic publication but I have emailed someone in the former IASLI organisation for their input.

[8] is a project with numerous universities across the UK which includes Queens in Belfast is undertaking a corpus [9] and there are no references to NISL there.

I have looked at all the organisations in NI that seem to represent deaf people and sign language and none mention NISL NDCS BDA NIDYA RNID CACDP

I get your point; however, you should understand that Wikipedia must adhere by a neutral point of view (NPOV), "representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources", even if such views are not endorsed by the official authorities or mainstream community (as is, in this case, clearly stated in the article). Even if we were to agree that NISL is mostly the result of a politically-charged undercurrent, it still remains one which has been picked up by an established publisher, John Benjamins, and in my opinion should therefore be noted. Gail (talk) 21:19, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.