In a world where communication relies heavily on speaking, sign language gives a voice to those who cannot do so. However, the people they can communicate with remains limited. Through learning sign language, not only can we communicate with them, but also act as vessels in helping them communicate with the world.
Written by Shermaine Wong
When we talk about language, the first thing that comes to our minds would be languages like English, Chinese and Tamil, for example. However, how many of us actually remember that sign language, too, is a language?
Sign language is a generally overlooked form of communication. Though not used or understood by the majority, it is vital to those in the deaf community. An estimated 70 million of deaf people worldwide rely on sign language to communicate. However, being limited to sign language is challenging. With little people outside of the community who can understand them, the deaf community is still unable to connect with the world as effectively as they should be able to.
Unawareness and poor education are contributing factors to the lack of hearing people who understand sign language. As deafness is an invisible disability, most of us do not give attention to the deaf community unless we have someone close to us that requires sign language to communicate. When that occurs, most of us are not properly equipped with the skills to communicate with them. Mainstream educational institutions are also not actively encouraging the learning of this language system in curriculums. Hence, being a vessel of communication for the deaf community by learning sign language will be up to us.
So, how do we start?
A good first step would be to understand what sign language is in the first place.
According to Cambridge University, sign languages are “languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning”. To put simply, gestures are used instead of words to “speak”.
Sign languages are most commonly used by those who are hearing-impaired. However, they are also used by those who are verbally impaired, and learnt by those who wish to communicate with the deaf community better. Sign languages are important to the deaf community, giving them the voice that they do not have. In a fast paced society, it is also a faster, easier, and more convenient way for them to communicate and connect to the world around them.
There are more than 300 sign languages globally, and they differ from country to country! In Singapore, we use Singapore Sign Language (SgSL), which takes inspiration from some Shanghainese Sign Language, a variation of Chinese Sign Language, and American Sign Language, the most commonly used sign language around the world!
Here are a few simple greetings in SgSL that you can learn!