ASL has been demonstrated to influence the vocabulary and grammar of MSL; for example, because the original BANZSL two-handed manual alphabet is no longer used in the Maritimes and has been replaced by the one-handed American manual alphabet, lexicalized signs are developed from one-handed fingerspelling.
MSL is being supplanted by American Sign Language (ASL), so that by 2020, MSL has been largely restricted to older Deaf people in the Maritimes.