Recognition of sign languages

[Des Power]

Hello everyone. Like most things :-) it depends what you mean by a term; in
this case "recognized". In Australia, Australian Sign  Language (Auslan)is
recognized in the "National Language Policy (NPL)" and the "Australian
Languages and literacy Policy (ALLP)" and in at least one state languages
policy (Queensland), but this is nowhere legislated for specifically. The
NPL mentions Auslan as a "CLOTE: Community Language Other Than English"
which is widely used for the several hundred European, Asian and indigenous
languages spoken in Australia. This gives it "recognition" at the same
level as non-English spoken languages, both in substance and in several
areas of practice (interpreting services, education (Auslan is now used in
several bilingual/bicultural school programs, and in one state, even for
interpreting in regular classrooms for students receiving itinerant
support), etc.

The ALLP, for instance, says:

"Language ... may be used in a specific sense to refer to individual
languages.  Each commonly understood language system represents a language,
such as English or other languages .... For some people language ... may
also be manifest through a coherent, developed and systematic set of
visual/manual gestures, such as Australian Sign Language (Auslan), which is
the signed language of the Australian deaf community (p.8)."

"It is now increasingly recognized that signing deaf people constitute a
group like any other non-English-speaking language group in Australia, with
a distinct sub-culture recognized by shared history, social life and sense
of identity, united and symbolized by fluency in Auslan (p.20)."

Similar sentiments are expressed in the NPL.

Best wishes

Des



Emeritus Professor Des Power
Centre for Deafness Studies and Research
Griffith University

Irish Sign Language receives a mention in the Education Act (1988), but
this is not a recognition of the legal status of ISL per se, but an
acknowledgement of the fact that parents have the right to choose an ISL
based education for their Deaf children as an alternative to an
orally-driven education.

Apart from this, there is some de facto recognition of ISL, but our
constitution recognizes only Irish (Gaeilge) and English as the official
languages of the State and a referendum would be necessary to afford any
other language similar status here.

Lorraine

Dr. Lorraine Leeson
Director
Centre for Deaf Studies
83 Waterloo Lane
Ballsbridge
Dublin 4
Ireland


-----Original Message-----
From: For the discussion of linguistics and signed languages.
[mailto:SLLING-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA] On Behalf Of daisuke at YAHOO.COM
Sent: 12 June 2003 01:38
To: SLLING-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA
Subject: Recognition of sign languages

Hello.

U.K. and Mexico recently recognized their sign languages as languages
for the
deaf, and my colleague in Japan wants to know the latest information
regarding
what sign languages have been legally recognized as languages for the
deaf or
as national sign languages.

He has found an article by Verena Krausneker (reported at the EUD
Celebratory
Conference in April, 2000) at the following site:

http://www.ea.nl/EUDmail/v.krausneker.htm

15 countries are included in the list, and 5 more are mentioned in the
text.

His questions are:

1) Is there any other SL that has been legally recognized as the
national sign
language?

2) Is there a more complete, recent list or report regarding SLs that
have been
legally recognized as national sign languages?  According to him, the
WFD site
doesn't give such information.

Thanks in advance.


Daisuke