When signs say more than words

Without uttering a word, television presenter Navina Aziz Kabir can mimic every word with her very expressive hands.

Being a child of hearing-impaired parents, she learnt the sign language in a natural way and later underwent a course to make it ‘proper’ for the hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh who cannot hear.

But there is no institution to teach those people their first language. “The number (hearing-impaired people) is 3 million. But they don’t know proper sign language. They learn naturally to communicate with each other,” said Santanu Dey, who coordinates an NGO working with the hearing-impaired people and their language.

Giving proper training of their language, Dey told bdnews24.com that they could be good at schools and certain jobs as ‘they can concentrate as because sounds do not disturb them.’

The Society of the Deaf and Sign Language Users celebrated Bangla Sign Language Day on Thursday for the second time after an inter-ministerial meeting of the Ministry of Social Welfare on Jan 26, 2012 decided to commemorate Feb 7 the day every year. The decision still awaiting cabinet nod.

“We will get the day (cabinet endorsed) soon in recognisation of the hearing-impaired people’s rights, and dignity. But they badly need an institute so that they can learn their first language,” the coordinator, Dey said.

He said the institute would conduct research and training on the Bangla sign language. “India has started building an institute in 2011,” he said and that every language has its own sign language.

Activists say hearing-impaired people cannot express themselves after being subjected to torture or violence as general people usually do not understand them. Even during natural calamities, they do not know what is going on.

“There should be (sign language) learning facility at every government training centres so that government staff can understand the language,” said Farah Kabir, Country Director of Actionaid Bangladesh at a discussion on Thursday.

Terming them ‘good workers’ in certain jobs, the director general of the social welfare Nasima Begum suggested them to find out what jobs suitable for them. “We will help you to get that (job).”

The Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on different occasions also called upon all television channels to use sign language alongside usual during news bulletins.

State-run television BTV and private channel Desh TV responded to the premier’s call giving a spotlight on an overlooked career.

The presenter Kabir believes opportunities will grow by the time. “But there are not enough of us to go around. If we had an institute, then we could train up people regularly,” she said.

According to Kabir, signing is interesting, but “it’s not easy, lot of enthusiasm needs to learn (sign language).”

“For me, it was easy as I had to communicate at home. But it’s like other language English, French that you learn but if don’t practice you will forget,” she said as she explained about signing.

She said expressions were very important for the signing. “Sometimes you may need to give emphatic gestures and sometimes sympathetic facial expressions. And of course hands are primary tools.”

After home, she learnt the language from the Society of the Deaf that she said only organisation teaches the language in Bangladesh in limited scale. She is also a mentor of that organisation.

After learning sign language, one can work at schools, government agencies or translate for hearing-impaired people during doctors’ appointments and many other purposes, campaigners say.