South Africa now has a twelfth official language, following the historic signing of the Sign Language Bill into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa on July 19. South Africa is the fourth African country to do so – following Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Uganda – and the forty-first country internationally. There are 26 countries in Europe that officially recognise sign language, with six in South America, two in each of Oceania and Asia, and one – namely Mexico – in North America.

In case you were wondering just how many languages there are in the world – there are 7 117, of which 2 144 are spoken on the African continent. Roughly 150 to 200 world languages are spoken by more than one-million people, and 46 have only a single speaker left. Forty per cent of the world’s population is monolingual, which means that they speak only one language.

Should you be contemplating becoming bilingual, you might want to consider learning Toki Pona, which is considered to be the smallest language in the world. It consists of a mere 123 words, and it is said that it takes about 48 hours to learn, and you could converse with about 100 people.

Before going any further, let’s reflect on this article’s headline. Is it ‘signed language’ or ‘sign language’, and should it be ‘language’ or ‘languages’? If you have read this column before, you might well know me as a stickler for terminology. To answer the first question, ‘signed language’ is linguistically correct, but it is said that “it could be misinterpreted so that it does not support the values of the deaf community”. As for the second question, it is languages.

There are more than 300 different signed languages, which are fully fledged languages that are structurally distinct from the spoken language, according to the United Nations. As for the number of deaf people worldwide, according to the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), there are more than 70-million deaf people, over 80% of whom live in developing countries.

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognises and promotes the use of signed languages, which it considers to be equal in status to spoken languages. This obligates States to facilitate the learning of signed languages and to promote the linguistic identity of the deaf community.

If you are wondering about Braille and its possible inclusion as a language; well, it is not considered to be a language. Rather, it is a tactile code enabling completely blind and visually impaired people to read and write by touch.

So, as of July 19, South African Sign Language, or SASL, is an officially recognised language. It is, however, not the only signed language used in South Africa, but is the one that is promoted for use by the deaf in South Africa.

Instead of merely celebrating our twelfth official language, why don’t you become an active participant by studying the language? In most cases, you do not even need to venture outside your home or office – use your search engine. There are a number of academic institutions that offer courses, in some instances free of charge. Or you could consider studying through Deafinition (www.deafinition.co.za), which is a nonprofit organisation that provides a range of services and funding opportunities to promote equal access for the deaf community.

But why study the language? According to www.handtalk.me: “The truth is that learning sign language enriches your cognitive processes and helps you develop higher abstract and creative thinking, improves your body language skills, increases problem-solving capacities, and strengthens your overall communication skills. Simply put, it is a great workout for your brain.”

Remember to diarise September 23, which is the International Day of Sign Languages. The significance of the date is that it celebrates the establishment, in 1951, of the WFD, and was first celebrated in 1958.