Over 5,000 TT nationals

This was revealed at a media conference Wednesday by the director of the Disability Affairs Unit in the Ministry of Social Development, Angela Edwards.

She was speaking at the launch of the effort by the Management Committee for the Standardising of Trinidad and Tobago Sign Language at the Ministry of Social Development, Port-of-Spain.

“I believe 1.1 million persons responded to the 2000 census,” she said.

The reason, she said, for the Management Committee for the Standardising of TT Sign Language launching its project was to develop one national sign language for the country.

“The base of our sign language,” she stated, “is the American sign language and there are a lot of words in the American sign language that we also use nationally but there are a lot of words that are unique to our society and culture that you won’t find in American sign language.

“A few examples,” she explained, “are buss up shot, Kaiso, Chutney, Soca Chutney and lime, so there may not be any other existing words currently to replace these words in sign.” Edwards continued, “So what has happened is that, over the years, we would have signs that vary from Tobago to Cedros to San Fernando to Toco and the signs would be different. So, you have the hearing impaired community communicating with different signs even within our own country.” She stressed that if the country’s hearing impaired community is to become inclusive in the nation, then it needs to have a consistent, credible, standardised sign language.

Social Development Minister Anthony Roberts said the standardisation of sign language in TT was a very important aspect of national inclusion for the country’s hearing impaired community.

“We consider sign language to be a legitimate language in TT,” he said.

He continued, “If the hearing impaired community is to actualise and to contribute positively to this country’s development, the language has to be consistent.”

Minister Roberts said that as a minister, he has indicated his interest in learning sign language because he believes that it’s important for him to communicate with TT’s hearing impaired persons without an interpreter.

Letters of appointment were distributed to members of the Management Committee for the Standardising of TT Sign Language at the end of the ceremony.