The significance of making South African Sign Language (SASL) the 12th official language lies in a few exceptional milestones.
Firstly, South Africa becomes the first country in the world to recognise its national sign language as an official language in the country’s Constitution. This is different from the current 11 countries that officially recognise their sign languages.
Secondly, South Africa has become the seventh country in the world to recognise its national sign language as an official national language.
Thirdly, it took SASL just as long to become an official language of the country, as was the case with South Africa’s nine Sintu languages (Zulu, Sotho, etc.). These languages were first recognised officially at regional level in 1963, but were recognised alongside Afrikaans and English from the interim 1993 Constitution.
SASL was granted official status from nowhere within 30 years. Incidentally, Afrikaans gained official status in 1925 – within 17 years after the 1909 Union Act was passed, recognising only English and Dutch as official languages.
Three factors played a role in achieving these milestones. The whole disability issue, sustained pressure from an active Deaf lobby, and the active and decisive bottom-up actions by a string of role players.
The degree of political favour should certainly not be lost sight of either. Already in 1995, the ruling ANC wanted SASL to become an official language, and eventually submitted exactly such a proposal to the Constitutional Assembly. Even though the time was not ripe for this, the proposal resulted in SASL being declared an official language in the South African Schools Act of 1996 for the purposes of teaching and learning in public schools (note, not only deaf schools), the inclusion of “sign language” [sic] in the constitutional language mandate of the Pan South African Language Board, and the granting of linguistic human rights to all South Africans, including the deaf, in terms of the Bill of Human Rights.
The further amplification of SASL in terms of the 18th Constitutional Amendment crowns this campaign, which goes back to the period of the birth of our democracy.
International experts give three reasons why the officialisation of countries’ national sign languages is significant:
- It can help to ensure that deaf people have access to education, employment, and other services in their “own language”.
- It can promote the use of sign languages in general, and also help to preserve the languages.
- It can raise awareness about the so-called deaf culture and the contributions of the deaf.
This brings us to an important juncture – inclusivity and the promotion of sign language, since education is critical.
To date, the Schools Act has been enforced in such a way that SASL has mainly been taught in deaf schools as home language, while the law stipulates that it applies to all public schools.
A curriculum must be developed so that the language can also be taught as first and second additional language.
- Prof. Theodorus du Plessis is of the Department of South African Sign Language and Deaf Studies at the University of the Free State (UFS).
