Compiled by Oliver Walsh (Talking Heads Work Experience)

To celebrate the beginning of the new academic year, Google has turned its logo into a doodle representing British Sign Language (BSL) and also created a video in celebration, which you can watch here.

BSL first came to light in 1760 and was pioneered by Thomas Braidwood when he founded his own school for deaf children in Edinburgh. Before this school was established, deaf people had relied on lip reading and being forced to speak, but Braidwood produced a new method of teaching named the ‘combined method’, in which he introduced hand gestures as a form of communication.

It started off slow, and had only one child as his student at the beginning, but by 1780 he was teaching 20 pupils as his reputation spread. Soon after, the school was moved to London.

Now, approximately 50,000 deaf people in Britain use BSL as their main form of communication, and it was recognised as an official minority language by the UK government in 2003.

Read the full Telegraph article here.

For your BSL Interpreting requirements, contact our Interpreting team on 0114 470 1075 or info@talkingheads.co.uk.

Compiled by Oliver Walsh (Talking Heads Work Experience)