Development of SA Sign Language as an official language

Nhlanhla Simelane

It has been a year since the president signed off on the amendment bill to include South African Sign Language (SASL) as one of the country’s official languages.

And one may wonder, what has changed since then? After all, many people and organisations, including the Deaf Federation of SA (DeafSA), the National Institute for the Deaf (NID) and rights activists from the community, believe that official recognition of sign language will lead to significant developments for SASL and the community.

Since then, SASL has mostly benefited from the exposure of the SASL indabas that PanSALB held on March 9-10 last year and on February 1-2 this year. These indabas were aimed at “discussing the standardisation of SASL and mapping a way forward”.

They included several stakeholders, including our very own institution.

They also had an impact on the development of SASL in various institutions, including Unisa and the University of Cape Town, and it is hoped that this influence will extend to other institutions.

However, one must not overlook that, despite being a minority language, SASL has already enjoyed significant language rights.

For example, the SA Schools Act recognised it as an official language in 1996. The Use of Official Languages Act of 2012 provided another benefit that was not even enjoyed by the other 11 official languages; with this act state entities had to establish a language policy outlining the use of official languages for public communication, specifically if a member of the public chose SASL as their preferred language.

It also benefited from protection under the SA Sign Language Charter, launched by the SASL National Language Board in 2020, roughly three years before it became official.

Theodorus du Plessis, professor emeritus in the Department of SA Sign Language and Deaf Studies, at the University of the Free State (UFS), in a previous opinion article, mentioned that there would be little to gain from officially recognising SASL, aside from the added symbolism associated with such a move.

As a matter of fact, SASL had more to lose than gain due to its official recognition. On a human rights level, which is more relevant to those living with hearing impairments, the officialisation of SASL still had no significant effect on any of their human rights.

This is simply because the deaf already enjoyed their rights.

However, what the officialisation cost the deaf community is the privilege that the Use of Official Languages Act of 2012 provided – users of SASL having the right to choose SASL as their language of interaction with the state – the very one that official languages do not enjoy. This is a disadvantage to the deaf community, considering that they already suffer from a lack of interpreters in the country.

Nicky Bezuidenhout highlighted in an article this year that there is a “lack of access to crucial services like health care and justice due to a shortage of qualified SASL interpreters”.

Therefore, many deaf people rely on untrained or unqualified individuals and mostly even family members to act as interpreters.

This was mostly the case in my life, being a Coda (Child of a Deaf Adult) having to interpret for my parents.

And besides my proficiency in SASL, there was still the matter of a breach of confidentiality. This is a common problem for many people. Therefore, more interpreters (SASLi) are needed.

Additionally, it is up to everyone to take it upon themselves to learn SASL. UFS, among a few other institutions such as Wits, North West University and the Durban University of Technology, makes such a provision through its SASL short course. Another way to learn is via apps such as DEAFinition and the NID SASL Dictionary.

Since SASL is officially recognised, hopefully it will become more accessible in higher education institutions and included in the school curriculum. Nonetheless, it has only been a year and matters regarding language plans and policies often require a great amount of resources, especially time.

We can only hope that its officialisation has led to the cultural acceptance of SASL. More important, we hope that this is not the end of the road for SASL in terms of its development as a language.

Simelane is a second-year Language Practice student, majoring in SASL. He is also a former chairperson of Signals, a student association that promotes SASL and deaf awareness.

Cape Times