Talk:Legal recognition of sign languages

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I'll be working on an overview of some recognized sign languages soon, merging a template from the Dutch wikipedia, nl:Sjabloon:Gebarentalen and the content of nl:Erkenning van gebarentalen. --Jadriaen 23:39, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

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[edit] Page rename

This page was moved from "Recognition of sign languages" to "Legal recognition of sign languages", with this explanation: "Old title misleads one to think this article is about computer recognition (à la optical character recognition)". I don't object to renaming, but I'm wondering if the new title is a little restrictive; sometimes the recognition is a matter of policy and not law. "Official recognition of sign languages" sounds awkward but may be more accurate. Any thoughts? ntennis 04:27, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not really in favour of the name change, but maybe I underestimate the misleadingness of the old title because of my affinity with the subject. Anyway, mostly recognition is concerned with legal decisions (laws, decrees, resolutions,...), so there is nothing wrong with the new title (I think). --Jadriaen 20:58, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I preferred the original name too, but I'm happy to leave it as is for now. ntennis 00:21, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Improving this article

I would like to start thinking how this article could be improved. This is the start of some brainstorming on the subject.

In this article, the following information should ideally be present for each country/region:

  1. Is the local sign language recognised? If so, what does this "recognition" mean legally? (Is the sign language mentioned by name? Or is it just referred to as "the sign language"?)
  2. Sum up and give references to key legislation. Give quotes from that legislation.
  3. How is the situation in education? Special laws or policy?
  4. How is the non-legal situation, e.g. sign language on television: interpreters for news and focus programmes (e.g. See Hear)?
  5. What are key dates in the emancipation of the Deaf Community in this country/region?
  6. ...

A good starting point for a lot of this information is the following document: [1].

If you have any further suggestions, please give them here. Jadriaen 18:22, 9 May 2006 (UTC).

Have you seen the WikiProject Languages sign language template page? I put a similar list there a while ago as a guideline to pages about sign languages (see under "recognition of sign languages"), hoping it would help such pages be more consistent. ntennis 02:24, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
'United Kingdom' seems to be missing from the 'Sign language status' list. Official Recognition of British Sign Language is mentioned in the Sources section of the article, but I nearly missed it. Even if a heading in the list for the UK only references Section 4 ("The legal status of BSL") of that document, it would still be useful to have in the list. Also, is 'by state' really necessary in the heading for the 'Sign language status' list? I don't understand why it is there. --Dotjay 19:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Intro

The legal recognition of sign languages is one of the major concerns of the international Deaf community. There is no unique way in which such a recognition can be formalized; every country has its own interpretation. In some countries, the national sign language is an official state language, whereas in others it has a protected status in certain areas such as education. A symbolic recognition is no guarantee though for an effective improvement of the life of sign language users.

Perhaps the above intro can be improved? The way it's written now seem to suggest that recognition of sign language as a national or official language is usually just a symbolic recognition which doesn't guarantee anything. My understanding of the situation, at least here in NZ is that recognition of NZSL, while perhaps most desired for it's symbolism, does provide some guarantees such as recognition in court proceedings and requirements imposed upon government agencies to provide resources. While some of these may have already been provided for, either in law (e.g. anti-discrimination laws) or as a matter of course, I think it's important that we acknowledge that it is not necessarily simply a symbolic gesture. Of course, this will depend what laws and policies exist in that country that deal with official languages. I guess it will be most common in countries which already have more then one official language as in these countries, there will likely already be laws and the like which deal with how these other official languages must be supported etc. Obviously, we can't go into all this in the intro and some of it at the moment is unsourced speculation however I do think we need to make it clear that recognition of sign language as an official or national language is not necessarily exclusively a symbolic gesture but could provide additional protections and guarantees or strengthen existing protections and guarantees. Nil Einne 19:52, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the intro should be expanded with an overview of what recognition can mean in different contexts. Please go ahead with your suggested additions! :) ntennis 01:11, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quotations

The quotation boxes were rather ugly, so I replaced them with the {{cquote}} template. I also added the official-language versions of each of the documents (Finnish in the case of Finland) in footnotes.

For some reason I wasn't able to determine, the template discarded the citation in the Icelandic case. I'd be grateful if someone could fix this. Hairy Dude 16:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Fixed! Hairy Dude 17:08, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] South Africa

The South African constitution does not give recognition to South African Sign Language specifically. The section that establishes and defines the role of the Pan South African Language Board uses the term "sign language" in the generic sense. Roger (talk) 14:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Please feel free to edit the article! If you have the information handy, a quote and reference to the relevant section would also be very useful. ntennis 23:40, 27 February 2008 (UTC)