It’s great to learn September 23rd is observed as International Sign Language Day. (Thanks to Akhil Paul of Sense International India for tweeting about it).
International Day of Sign Language is observed every year on 23rd September along with the International Week of the Deaf. The choice of 23rd September as a date is same as the date when World Federation of the Deaf was established in 1951.
While sign language is the communication language for people with hearing impairment, everyone takes benefit of it indirectly. In fact, communication of every human being starts with sign language. Let’s notice how a two year child communicates of his / her needs; while some children at the age group start to speak, but many just gets started to speak and they do a lot of signals to communicate. For instance, they show a thumb towards their mouth when they needs water. They show their fingers towards credal or bed, when they want to sleep etc.,
Even when people grow up, use of hand gestures to communicate is quite common. Often people show their fingers to a direction to indicate a location (though that’s not the right way to communicate). But that help sometimes. Even if we do not know to communicate in sign-language, since we do a lot of signs in our routine life, it enable us to communicate with people who are hard of hearing.
Through this day, let’s raise awareness about sign-language and its importance. It’s great to see Braille and sign-languages are being introduced as subjects by CBSE for children with disabilities.
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