4.4 What’s the word order difference?

In English if we were to talk about the penguin, we would use pronouns such as ‘It’ or even ‘he’ or ‘she’ if we know the gender of the penguin. BSL does not use pronouns.

In BSL, a subject is usually introduced with their name and information about them. The subject is then ‘placed’ within the signing space and would be referred to by pointing at the subject.

In regards to tenses, these are represented in BSL by timelines. For example, you would use a timeline indicating the past, present and future. There is also a growth timeline and a numerical timeline.

Suffixes are not included in BSL. When denoting plurals with the suffix ‘-s’, BSL replicates this by signing the object multiple times.