Using sign languages an uplift battle for disabled

-newest world days being observed for reflection on what they stand for, and progress around the world to achieve their goals. It is an area of activity that has taken up plenty of energy among charitable people for several decades.

In the run to this year’s marking of the sign languages day, it will be remembered that in the past few months there was a report on progress being made to shift from the manual Braille sign language (dots distributed over a keyboard) to make the tool a digital device. That will ease accommodating more material by shorter working time, the way the world shifted from the typewriter and desk calculator to the computer. This was likely to be among themes in the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) and the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) organizing a panel discussion on using sign languages, where states undertake to provide sign languages to all those who need it.

UN chroniclers say that the day is a unique opportunity to protect the linguistic identity and cultural diversity of deaf people and other sign language users. The 2021 theme, declared by WFD was “We Sign For Human Rights,” highlighting how each of us – deaf and hearing people around the world – can work together hand in hand to promote the recognition of our right to use sign languages in all areas of life. It is at times a shock to hear that there are more than 70 million deaf people worldwide, with more than 80 per cent of them live in developing countries, and collectively using more than 300 different sign languages.

This is not something everyone sees on each passing day but there are compact communities including families or schools where this is part of reality. There are areas where the blind for instance (who hear but can’t read the usual script) have done well, for instance earning degrees and even higher degrees with Braille used where others write out texts. But they were not left behind and some became top officials in various government departments and in civil society, to the merited pride of our educational institutions.

At times local observers find it hard to grasp the view that sign languages are fully fledged natural languages, structurally distinct from the spoken languages, even that there is an international sign language, which is used by deaf people in international meetings. They also use it informally when travelling and socializing, which experts say is a pidgin form of sign language that is not as complex as natural sign languages and has a limited lexicon. It means most sign languages are rich in ….vocabulary.

Learning these things in schools and in other areas of society helps to build an aura of normalcy when one meets those who use sign languages, and thus learn better how to live up to the Convention on the rights of People with Disabilities. To appreciate that sign languages are equal in status to spoken languages and promote the linguistic identity of the deaf community is not easy. But it is an obligation to all of us.