South African Sign Language (SASL) has finally been written into our law books as an official language of SA. This is wonderful for the deaf community, but also for any person who has any challenges with communication.
At Thuthukani Special School, we have a few learners who are deaf, but as we have many other learners who have other challenges with communication, we have been learning and practicing SASL as a support language at our school for many years. This means that most of our teachers, assistants and learners know some key signs, and we can use it as a language that bridges many communication challenges and as a visual teaching tool.
SASL is a beautiful language, where you use your hand positions, hand movements and facial expressions to communicate. Just watch the SASL interpreters on TV!
The most useful sign is the “I Love You” sign.
It is made up of the letters ILY.
In Deaf Culture it is used as a greeting.
Just a few pointers:
- It does not help if only the deaf learner knows how to sign, hearing people also need to learn SASL to empower and include our deaf community.
- SASL is very different to American and British sign language
- SASL is not language bound – you use the same sign for words in any of our South African Languages. Only when you are spelling words, does the language you use become important.
- Just as any other language – there are local “slang terms” that may be regional, and it is always safer to use the official SASL signs
- When communicating with a deaf person, make good eye contact and speak normally. Use simple language. No need to shout or over exaggerate your mouth movements. If you can support your message with a basic sign, it will make communication much easier. Just as vision problems differ – some of us can see clearly with our bifocals -, deaf persons may have some ability to hear or lip read, so this can help to make your message clearer.
- SASL comes with its own grammatical rules. From the RealSASL website:
a. The basic SASL structure is Subject, Object, Verb. Example: BOY GIRL KISS
b. If you need to ask a question, the question comes at the end of the sentence. Example: BOY KISS WHO
c. If there is time or date involved, the time or date comes at the beginning of the sentence. Example: YESTERDAY, BOY GIRL KISS
d. If there is time or date required when asking a question, the structure will be as follows: Example: LAST WEEK, BOY KISS WHO? - There are several places where you can find resources – the Google App DEAFinition gives very clear guidelines on SASL to use for commonly used words and phrases.
- The website realsasl.com gives great guidance on how to interact with a deaf person, for example – to get a deaf person’s attention, it is socially appropriate to lightly touch their shoulder. sanda.org.za is the official website for the SA National Deaf Association
Best advice – start learning the basic SASL signs – hallo, how are you, please and thank you, and then go out and speak with a deaf person!