Sign language is a full-fledge mean of communication for deaf people, depending on facial and body gestures that enabled them to interact.

The UN General Assembly set September 23 as the International Day for Sign Languages to highlight their importance and how it was a major right for the deaf people to have their own languages. The international day coincides with establishment of the World Federation of the Deaf, founded in 1951.

“The sign language is multi-cultural and is derived from the culture of every country,” Hamad Al-Marri, President of Kuwait Sport Club for the Deaf, said.

Al-Marri, also member in the higher council for the disabled, told KUNA deaf people would be using their hands and other body gestures to express themselves.

Every country has a unique sign language depending on its culture, he explained. “There is an international sign language, and Arab sign language and a unique local sign language.” Al-Marri said many deaf people occupied senior positions because they excelled in the use of sign language.

He added he proposed to the Civil Service Commission the appointment of people with sign language expertise at government departments to help the deaf.

Al-Marri said His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah instructed Kuwait National Guards personnel, when he was deputy chief of KNG, to learn sign language to communicate with the deaf.

Dr. Mohammad Al-Ramzi, a sign language instructor, said sign language “is rich, expressive and complicated just like the spoken language, and it has a grammar framework similar to all human languages.” Speaking to KUNA, Al-Ramzi Arab countries unified their sign languages in 1999 and a dictionary was published with more than 3,000 signs.

The State of Kuwait is the first country in the world to interpret three TV news bulletins. The bulletins were raised to eight per day in 2020, he said.

Ismail Karam, Technical Director at Kuwait Sport Club for the Deaf, said he learned the sign language in Al-Amal (Hope) School for people with special needs which he joined in 1960.

After spending 12 years in the school, Karam graduated with the ability to write and sign language. He then worked at the Ministry of Finance Printing Press and spent 30 years, during which he joined formr classmates to establish Kuwait Society for Deaf and Dumb in 1975. The society changed its name to Kuwait Sport Club for the Deaf.

Al-Zahraa Al-Tamimi, member in the Deaf Friends team, said the team members were teaching the hairing impaired people how to use the sign language.

The team, she told KUNA, sought to spread the use of sign language in social media, TV channels and public places.

Kuwait is the second Arab country to introduce education of the deaf and the ministry of Education issued a law in 1965 making it mandatory for people with special needs to get education.

Source: Kuwait News Agency