The Officialisation of South African Sign Language: Implications for Place-Name Planning

Abstract

The South African Parliament’s Constitutional Review Committee recommended in 2017 that South African Sign Language (SASL) be declared the country’s 12th official language and that the Constitution be amended accordingly. Since the officialisation of a language entails its routinised use in official language domains and functions, one would expect this to be applicable to SASL. This would include, among other things, place-name standardisation, given the fact that place naming in signed languages is generally authentic and that written place names are consequently often renamed in signed languages. Using SASL as an alternative official language becomes challenging from a place-name planning point of view. This article considers place-name policy in South Africa in juxtaposition to the unique conventions regarding place naming in signed languages in general. The challenges regarding an inclusive approach to place-naming policy that accommodates the Deaf community are illustrated and recommendations are made regarding future place-name planning.