The nation has created the first bilingual South African Sign Language (SASL) dictionary as part of efforts to eliminate obstacles that inhibit members of the deaf population from properly communicating.
For standardised SASL lexical terms, the dictionary is accessible as a smartphone app.
The Minister of Sport, Arts, and Culture Nathi Mthethwa said on Thursday that “this initiative would dramatically close[the] communication gap, which affects many aspects of a deaf person’s life, including education, restricted capacity to be understood by majority of the South African public.”
The Minister said the dictionary will further expand the curriculum for studying South African Sign Language, develop cognitive function, and improve communication skills as he spoke at the Deaf Awareness Month inauguration in Cape Town and the publication of the first bilingual SASL dictionary.
The National Institute for the Deaf (NID) and the Pan South African Language Board (PANSALB) have been collaborating closely to standardise and validate the bilingual SASL Dictionary as part of ongoing efforts to improve SASL.
In order to close the communication gap that presently exists between the hearing and the deaf, the NID, a recognised non-profit organisation, has carried out considerable study in South African Sign Language and generates material aimed at both groups.
Over 3000 signs and 2500 English words make up the bilingual SASL Dictionary that the NID has created, which will make teaching and learning the two languages easier.
“This first edition dictionary’s release will deter the use of fragmented language, where each piece has its own accent in the movements that are signed and impact the language.
As a key instrument for language acquisition that enables the student to look up new terms, this dictionary will further unite the deaf community, the minister added.
He said that the combined demands for language documentation and promoting standardised learning tools were the driving forces behind the development of sign language dictionaries, and that both of these goals helped to elevate the status of sign languages.
The launch will be crucial to the PanSALB’s and the Department of Sport, Arts, and Culture’s efforts to promote multilingualism and South Africa’s emerging languages, particularly those of the National Language Service.
These organisations, who serve as the project’s advocates, “galvanise multilateral energies to form the cooperation arrangements necessary for the promotion and growth [of] multilingualism in our nation,” according to Mthethwa.
He said that in order to improve communication between hearing and non-hearing people, his department is hard at work creating and promoting South African Sign Language using digital and intelligent technology.
This event took place while the nation worked to make South African Sign Language the 12th official language, ensuring that the deaf communities could freely use their language like any other South African.
Additionally, it will make it possible for the larger South African culture to learn and value the language.
Although it is not yet one, it is recognised and protected in many laws and government regulations and is even accepted as having the same status as the other 11 official languages in South Africa, the Minister added.
Visit the following link for additional details about the dictionary: https://www.learnsasl.com/#/.