Lexical variation occurs in sign languages as in spoken languages. It is very common and has been frequently related to individual schools for the deaf, so-called 'schoolization'. This hypothesis was tested in South African Sign Language (SASL) in a young section of the deaf population. Using an extended version of Woodward's (1973) list (173 lemmas) 50 participants from 20 schools across South Africa were asked to produce their sign, resulting in 2457 tokens. Using the parameters of handshape, palm orientation, location and movement signs were classified as identical if all four were the same. If the signs differed in one parameter only, they were considered similar, otherwise they were classed as different. Signs that were identical or similar were considered to form one sign type. Eleven sign types were removed from the analysis on the basis of iconicity, which could lead to higher amounts of overlap. The result was 630 sign types. There was variation in the number of sign types found per lemma, varying from 1 to 11 (mean 3.9). This is comparable to findings in other sign languages, but is clearly lower than the variation found in much earlier work on SASL (Penn & Reagan 1994). Some standardization has clearly taken place. In a pair-wise comparison of schools with respect to overlap it was clear that no school has a variety of SASL that stands alone from the others. The amount of overlap ranged from 30% to 71%, and was not higher between schools from the same province. The history of the school in terms of possible influence from a foreign sign language also did not appear to bear any relation to the amount of overlap. The hypothesis of schoolization is strongly supported. This study forms a basis for further research on standardization, relevant for the educational context.