What is South African sign language? What is the South African deaf community

Abstract

SUMMARY What is South African Sign Language? What is the South African Deaf Community? These two questions may look simple but answering them is quite complicated. It is a well-known fact that across the world, the majority of deaf children have hearing parents who are not likely to know a signed language. These children start acquiring their signed language only when beginning (pre) school. The atypical acquisition process is but one of the factors likely to influence any signed language. Another such factor is the spoken language used by the surrounding hearing community. Both (deaf) education and (spoken) language use are complicated issues in South Africa. It is therefore not hard to understand that determining the nature of South African Sign Language is also far from simple. And because it is the signed language which is the most important defining characteristic of any Deaf community, defining the South African Deaf Community is not simple either. This chapter gives an overview of past positions on both these questions and aims at providing some preliminary answers.