[clarification needed] The ISO standard currently distinguishes: Deaf schools in South Asia are overwhelmingly oralist in their approach.

During this period, Ali Yavar Jung National Institute of Hearing and the Handicapped (AYJNIHH), Mumbai, established an ISL cell.

The schools are the Bajaj Institute of Learning (BIL) in Dehradun and Mook Badhir Sangathan in Indore.

Apart from the establishment of organisations working for Deaf people there has been a spurt in research on sign language in India.

However, the urban varieties of India, Pakistan, Nepal (Nepalese Sign Language), and Bangladesh are clearly related (although, for Nepalese Sign Language at least, it is not clear whether the relation is genetic, or perhaps rather one of borrowing compounded by extensive incorporation of a shared South Asian gestural base).

[citation needed] The Delhi Association for the Deaf is reportedly working with Jawaharlal Nehru University to identify a standard sign language for India.

[14] In addition, classical Indian dance and theatre often employs stylised hand gestures with particular meanings.

[15] An early reference to gestures used by deaf people for communication appears in a 12th-century Islamic legal commentary, the Hidayah.

In the influential text, deaf (or "dumb") people have legal standing in areas such as bequests, marriage, divorce and financial transactions, if they communicate habitually with intelligible signs.

However, it is unlikely that any of these sign systems are related to modern IPSL, and deaf people were largely treated as social outcasts throughout South Asian history.

Documented deaf education began with welfare services, mission schools and orphanages from the 1830s, and "initially worked with locally-devised gestural or signed communication, sometimes with simultaneous speech.

"[18] Later in the 19th century, residential deaf schools were established, and they tended (increasingly) to adopt an oralist approach over the use of sign language in the classroom.

A rare case of a public event conducted in sign language was reported by a mission in Palayamkottai in 1906: "Our services for the Deaf are chiefly in the sign language, in which all can join alike, whether learning Tamil, as those do who belong to the Madras Presidency, or English, which is taught to those coming from other parts.

Some distinct features of IPSL that differ from other sign languages include: mansiblingman siblingbrotherwomansiblingwoman siblingsisterBANKbankWHEREWHBANK WHEREbank WHWhere is the bank?SICKsickWHOWHSICK WHOsick WHWho is sick?Sentences are always predicate final, and all of the signs from the open lexical classes can function as predicates.

Due to the political divide, Indian and Pakistani sign languages are generally perceived different, hence leading to fragmented research.