Requests for new languages/Wikipedia South African Sign Language

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submitted verification final decision
Discuss the creation of this language project on this page. Votes will be ignored when judging the proposal. Please provide arguments or reasons and be prepared to defend them (see the Language proposal policy).

The language committee needs to verify the language is eligible to be approved.

  • Check that the project does not already exist (see list).
  • Obtain an ISO 639 code
  • Ensure the requested language is sufficiently unique that it could not exist on a more general wiki.
  • Ensure that there are a sufficient number of native editors of that language to merit an edition in that language.
  • The community needs to develop an active test project; it must remain active until approval (automated statistics, recent changes). It is generally considered active if the analysis lists at least three active, not-grayed-out editors listed in the sections for the previous few months.
  • The community needs to complete required MediaWiki interface translations in that language (about localization, translatewiki, check completion).
  • The community needs to discuss and complete the settings table below:
What Value Example / Explanation
Proposal
Language code sfs (SIL, Glottolog) A valid ISO 639-1 or 639-3 language code, like "fr", "de", "nso", ...
Language name South African Sign Language Language name in English
Language name Sign Language Language name in your language. This will appear in the language list on Special:Preferences, in the interwiki sidebar on other wikis, ...
Language Wikidata item Q3322093 - item has currently the following values: Item about the language at Wikidata. It would normally include the Wikimedia language code, name of the language, etc. Please complete at Wikidata if needed.
Directionality LTR Is the language written from left to right (LTR) or from right to left (RTL)?
Links Links to previous requests, or references to external websites or documents.
Site URL sfs.wikipedia.org langcode.wikiproject.org

Settings
Project name "Wikipedia" in your language
Project namespace South African Sign Language Wikipedia usually the same as the project name
Project talk namespace South African Sign Language Wikipedia talk "Wikipedia talk" (the discussion namespace of the project namespace)
Enable uploads no Default is "no". Preferably, files should be uploaded to Commons.
If you want, you can enable local file uploading, either by any user ("yes") or by administrators only ("admin").
Notes: (1) This setting can be changed afterwards. The setting can only be "yes" or "admin" at approval if the test creates an Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP) first. (2) Files on Commons can be used on all Wikis. (3) Uploading fair-use images is not allowed on Commons (more info). (4) Localisation to your language may be insufficient on Commons.
Optional settings
Project logo File:Sign language alphabet (59).png This needs to be an SVG image (instructions for logo creation).
Default project timezone South Africa "Continent/City", e.g. "Europe/Brussels" or "America/Mexico City" (see list of valid timezones)
Additional namespaces Talk pages, userpages, donations and articles For example, a Wikisource would need "Page", "Page talk", "Index", "Index talk", "Author", "Author talk".
Additional settings categories Anything else that should be set
submit Phabricator task. It will include everything automatically, except additional namespaces/settings. After creating the task, add a link to the comment.

Proposal[edit]

In 1995, the previous South African National Council for the Deaf (SANCD) was transformed into the Deaf Federation of South Africa (DeafSA), which resulted in a radical policy change in matters for Deaf people in South Africa, such as the development and adoption of a single sign language and the promotion of sign language over oralism. Schools for the deaf have remained largely untransformed, however, and different schools for Deaf children in South African still use different sign language systems, and at a number of schools for the Deaf the use of any sign language is either discouraged or simply not taught. There are as many as twelve different systems of signed oral language in South Africa.

In addition to South African sign languages, American Sign Language (ASL) is also used by some Deaf people in South Africa. Most local sign languages in South Africa show the influence of American Sign Language.

In South Africa, newscasts on television employ the sign language known as SASL. The South African parliament also uses sign language, however different sign language interpreters are known to use various signals for the same topics. There are around 40 schools for the Deaf in South Africa, most using a variety of SASL.

Sign language is explicitly mentioned in the South African constitution, and the South African Schools Act permits the study of the language in lieu of another official language at school.

By 2011, there were 84 SASL interpreters on DeafSA's interpreter register, including 43 without any training, 31 who have completed 240 study hours of interpreter training, and 10 who have gained an additional 3 years' experience and completed a further 480 study hours. A total of seven SASL interpreters have actually been accredited by SATI/DeafSA. SASL interpreters can apply for accreditation without having completed any formal training in SASL.: --DJ Aquah (talk) 09:33, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

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