This week is Sign Language Week. We have been reading articles and watching videos about signing. We discovered it is a combination of hand shapes, facial expressions and body movements. We thought it was just hand movements. We were shocked to discover that using Sign Language was banned from 1880-1979. Deaf people had to lip-read and speak aloud to communicate. This is called oralism. But deaf people continued to sign in secret. Then in 1979 Total Communication was used. This is a combination of using formal signs, finger-spelling, body language, listening, lip-reading and speech. It was made an official language in New Zealand by the New Zealand Sign Language Act in 2006.
We learnt some simple phrases. Check out our individual blogs to learn how to sign.
