Deep analysis of it began in the 1980s, along the lines of William Stokoe's research on American Sign Language in the 1960s.
Some features of LIS are typical of sign languages in general, e.g. agreement between nouns, adjectives and verbs is not based on gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) but it is based on place, that is the spatial position in which the sign is performed: nouns can be placed everywhere in the space but their position must be consistent with that of pronouns and verbs.
The LIS translation of the sentence "The child speaks to the mother" appears as Child-here mother-there this-speak-that, rather than involving forms like "he, she".
The voice intonation is replaced by facial expressions which mark interrogative sentences, imperatives and relative clauses.
The Romans, along with most of Europe, inherited from Greece the notion that thought corresponds with the spoken word and thereby believed that deaf-mute individuals possessed lower intelligence and ability to reason.
During the Middle Ages, these legal rights were severely restricted because the deaf could not serve feudal lords their military interests.
The restrictions the deaf faced included losing the right to inheritance, to celebrate mass and to marry ([6] p. 239).
The first Italian text mentioning deaf people's ability to reason and to use their intellect, through signing or other means, was of the legal advisor Bartolo della marca c'Ancona early in the 14th century ([6] p. 240).
The invention of the printing press and, hence, the widespread availability of books stimulated general interest in education practices and this entailed several positive developments for the deaf.
([6] p. 240) The first Italian teacher of deaf pupils was Pedro Ponce de León (1520-1584 CE), a Benedictine monk.
This was a tradition possibly dating back to the establishment of the vow of silence by St. Benedict in 529 CE in a town near Naples.
([6] p. 242-3) The first Italian school for the deaf was founded by Tommaso Silvestri in the late 18th century.
[7] In Italian texts of this time, the signing used by the deaf was always referred to as la lingua dei gesti ("the language of gestures").
For example, in 1857, Ciro Marzullo wrote La grammatica pei sordo-muti ("The grammar for the deaf-dumb"), a textbook describing and illustrating various signs which can aid to learn written languages and parts of speech.
[7] Two factors have been proposed to explain the enormous influence and success of the Milan Conference in establishing the oral method.
Secondly, the Italian unification (c. 1815-1870) entailed nationalism and a single language was deemed as key to uniformity ([6] p. 237-8).
[9] Often a first step in the official recognition of a language is the formalization of a grammar and a lexicon, the latter in the form of a dictionary.
For example, one not-for-profit foundation aimed at improving the living conditions of the deaf and deaf-blind offers a bilingual dictionary with both written Italian and visual depiction of signs in book form.
In 1999 the following minority languages were officially recognized: Albanian, Catalan, German, Greek, Croatian, French, Franco-Provençal, Friulian, Ladin, Occitan, Sardinian and Slovene.
However, learning LIS is generally not part of following mainstream education, but is only offered by private or state-owned schools specifically for the Deaf.
An important marker for the status of a signing community is the existence and viability of a national association for the deaf.
The foundation proposed draft bills to the government to recognize LIS as an official language and this was actually pre-approved by the Council of Ministers, but it was later suspended due to a political crisis.
Firstly, a website offering an encyclopedic service, comparable to Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia, based on LIS video lectures is available.
[21] Although somewhat outdated due to the rising popularity of mobile phones, a text-to-speech telephone service is still available in most parts of Italy as of 2011.