12th official language in South Africa to be signed into law

President Cyril Ramaphosa will on Wednesday sign into law the South African Sign Language Bill during a ceremony at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.

On 2 May, the national assembly approved that section 6 of the constitution be amended to include South African Sign Language (SASL) as an official language to promote the rights of people who are deaf and hard of hearing.

“South African Sign Language is an indigenous language that constitutes an important element of South African linguistic and cultural heritage,” the presidency said in a statement.

“It has its own distinct grammatical structures and lexicon and it is independent of any other language.”

The new legislation seeks to:

• Advance the cultural acceptance of SASL;
• Ensure the realisation of the rights of people who are deaf and hard of hearing to equal protection and benefit of the law and human dignity; and
• Promote inclusive and substantive equality and prevent or eliminate unfair discrimination on the grounds of disability, as guaranteed under the constitution.

With this initiative, South Africa becomes the fourth country on the African continent to recognise sign language as an official language. The other countries are Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda.

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