That attention, in turn, has helped raise the profile of SASL itself – whose users have long advocated for it to be made South Africa's 12th official language.
As the children of deaf parents – known in the community as CODAS, for"children of deaf adults" – both women know firsthand how deaf South Africans often struggle to access essential information in their own language. Like many deaf South Africans, Du Toit's mother, for instance, doesn't read English, making it nearly impossible for her to use closed captions for TV broadcasts in that language.
In apartheid South Africa, most white deaf children attended schools where they were told to sit on their hands, and punished if they were caught using sign language with their peers. As a result, many older white deaf South Africans like Du Toit's parents still communicate in a hybrid of signing, lip reading, and spoken language.
That meant that as one of the first Black students at a formerly all-white deaf school in Johannesburg in the 1990s, Njeyiyana says she saw a strange reversal of South Africa's typical racial hierarchy. For instance, while there is an organization that accredits SASL interpreters, they are not required to register with it. That sometimes has lead to humiliating errors.
fyi GallaudetU NDCS_UK deaflympics IFHOHYP WASLI_tweets WFDYS NAD1880 you might be interested in sharing!
The guy for GovernorLittle does an amazing job too! Unlike the governor sadly 😒
Linguistic Minority I think is what I just read they call themselves.. perfect
This lady in Minneapolis is pretty great, too.