South African Sign Language (SASL) has been given the green light by the National Assembly to become an official language in South Africa.
The National Assembly passed the Constitutional Eighteenth Amendment Bill, which will make the necessary changes to the Constitution to make room for a 12th official language.
The bill still needs to be sent to the National Council of Provinces for concurrence and then sent to President Cyril Ramaphosa to be enacted.
Once assented to by the president, the amendment bill will change section 6 of the Constitution and the National Official Languages Act, recognising SASL. The constitution currently only provides for 11 languages.
Making SASL an official language has been a lengthy process, with a parliamentary committee first proposing its adoption in 2020.
Moloto Mothapo, a spokesperson for Parliament, said that the committee had received several written submissions in support of the bill.
Parliament acknowledged that SASL is not a universal language; however, the decision is in the best interest of the promotion and development of SASL.
Prof Theodorus Du Plessis of the Department of South African Sign Language and Deaf Studies at the University of the Free State told CapeTalk that the addition of sign language is an important and symbolic addition to the regulatory framework of South Africa.
“Other than the symbolic meaning, there’s really not much in it. The fact is that our language rights as South Africans are protected in the Constitution but not in relation to any official language.”
“The only rights we have in terms of official language are the rights linked to schooling. And this right was already given to persons with hearing loss in 1996, so sign language was already an official language in schools. But other than that, we don’t have actual language rights linked to our languages being official since only one language is used by the State,” said the professor.
In South Africa, the vast majority of deaf people are born to hearing parents – resulting in SASL not being acquired as a first language.
SASL is typically learned in school from peers and is the first language for most deaf children in the country. Although there are regional differences in SASL, the grammatical structure remains consistent nationwide.
There is, however, not always a direct correspondence between SASL and English, as one sign may be translated into multiple English words and vice versa.
Read: Changes to work hours in South Africa face major hurdles: expert
Artmotion S.Africa
