Sign language yesterday became the 12th officially recognised language in SA after President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law the Constitution Eighteenth Amendment Bill during a ceremony at the Union Buildings.

As previously reported, the National Assembly on 2 May approved section six of the Constitution be amended to include South African Sign Language (SASL) as an official language to promote the rights of persons who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The Citizen reorts that Dr Claudine Storbeck from the Centre for Deaf Studies at Wits University said SASL becoming an official language is an important step towards the realisation of the rights of persons who are deaf or hard of hearing.

She said SASL is a visual gestural language and deaf people cannot access any of the other 11 official languages because they are spoken oratory languages.

‘Deaf people have never been able to access any of the spoken languages. So, this is the first time in SA that they will be able to access key fundamental human rights, public health, the justice system and any of the public services in their own language that is accessible. That makes it so fundamental.’

The most recently available figures, quoted in a 2012 research article, suggest that as few as one in three deaf South African adults who use SASL is functionally literate and the average deaf school leaver has a written language comprehension ability equal to that of a hearing child of eight.

Storbeck said there will be a responsibility on learning institutions, organisations and even companies to accommodate deaf people.

Full report in The Citizen

See also full Cape Argus report