Gestuno

Gestuno is a constructed sign language, which the World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf originally discussed in 1951.

In 1973, a committee created and standardized a system of international signs. They tried to choose the most understandable signs from diverse sign languages to make the language easy to learn. The commission published a book with about 1500 signs. It does not have a concrete grammar, so some say that it is not a real language. Instead of one specific grammar, any sign language grammar can be used. In the early 1980s this evolved into International Sign which is only used to communicate between Deaf people who use sign languages from different countries. Gestuno was documented and published in the 1950s and is now only used as a reference for International Sign.

The name "Gestuno" is from Italian, meaning "the unity of sign languages." Many Deaf people use International Sign at the World Games for the Deaf and at many international Deaf conferences (such as the World Federation of Deaf convention which takes place every four years).