-ción (for nouns). Articles and pronouns are fingerspelled. Signed Spanish (or Pidgin Signed Spanish) is often used by interpreters and during public reading or song-leading. Signed Spanish is also used by some hard of hearing and late deafened people. Relationship to other sign languages LSM is widely believed by the deaf community to have derived from Old French Sign Language (OFSL), which combined with pre-existing local sign languages and home sign systems when deaf schools were first established in 1869. However, it is mutually unintelligible with American Sign Language, which emerged from OFSL 50 years earlier in the US, although the American manual alphabet is almost identical to the Mexican one. Spanish Sign Language used in Spain is different from Mexican Sign Language, though LSM may have been influenced by it. Status In 2005, Mexican Sign Language was officially declared a "national language" in Mexico, along with Spanish and indigenous languages, to be used in the national education system for the deaf. Before 2005, the major educational philosophy in the country focused on oralism (speech and lipreading) and with few schools that conducted classes in LSM. A 5-minute signed segment of a nightly television news program was broadcast in Signed Spanish in the mid-1980s, then again in the early 1990s, discontinued in 1992, and resumed as a 2-minute summary of headlines in 1997. Alternate names SEÑAS ESPAÑOL ("Spanish Sign" - LSM is widely known by this name among the Deaf Community in Mexico, although the language is unrelated to Spanish or to Spanish Sign Language) Lenguaje de señas mexicano (no longer used) Lenguaje de las Manos (no longer used) Lenguaje Manual Mexicano (no longer used) See also Mayan sign languages References External links SIL page on LSM Diccionario de LSM (Spanish) WikiSigns.org - Diccionario collaborativo de LSM Languages of Mexico French Sign Language family Sign languages of Mexico