Sign Language Day 2024

International Day of Sign Languages is celebrated every year on 23rd September. This celebration arises from the 2017 UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/72/16, which recognizes 23rd September as the International Day of Sign Languages. As per the UN, the resolution establishing the day acknowledges that early access to sign language and services in sign language, including quality education available in sign language, is vital to the growth and development of the deaf individual and critical to the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals. It recognizes the importance of preserving sign languages as part of linguistic and cultural diversity.

According to the World Federation of the Deaf, there are more than 70 million deaf people worldwide. More than 80% of them live in developing countries. Collectively, they use more than 300 different sign languages. UN defines Sign languages as fully fledged natural languages, structurally distinct from the spoken languages. Indian Sign Language (ISL) is a natural visual-manual language native to the Deaf community of India and used by both Deaf and Hearing community.

The International Day of Sign Languages was first celebrated in 2018 as part of the International Week of the Deaf. Since then, every year 23rd September is celebrated as International Day of Sign Languages all over the world. In India, we call it Sign Language Day and celebrate 23rd September every year since 2018. The choice of 23rd September for the Sign Language Day was also because of the fact that the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) was established on the same day in 1951.

The UN General Assembly has proclaimed 23rd September as the International Day of Sign Languages in order to raise awareness of the importance of sign language in the full realization of the human rights of people who are deaf.

The theme of this year Sign Language Day 2024 is “Sign up for Sign Language Rights”.