Laura speaking Swiss-Italian Sign Language

This video was submitted by Laura Sciuchetti from Switzerland, where she lives and works at the Swiss Deaf Federation. Swiss-Italian Sign Language (LIS-SI) is spoken natively by some 300 people, and by as many as 13,000 people as a second language, primarily in southern Switzerland. It is a common misconception that sign languages are literal translations of their spoken counterparts; however, LSI-SI bears no relation to spoken Italian. In fact, it is more grammatically similar with Basque in that verbs fall at the end of sentences. It is one of three sign languages in Switzerland, along with French-Swiss SL and German-Swiss SL. All three remain unrecognized by the government.