The status and standardization of Dutch Sign Language

At the moment, Dutch Sign Language (NGT) is not recognized as an official language in the Netherlands. There are two other official languages; these are Dutch and Fries. NGT is seen as a language in a societal and political way but it is not recognized by law. Therefore, it is not an official language. The status of a signed language is, however, very strong related to the status of Deaf1 people within a society and the role of sign language in their education (Schermer, 1991; Schermer, 2008). This is the reason that this situation could have negative consequences for the Deaf community.
 To improve this situation, there have been several requests to make NGT recognized by law since 1990. But the ministry of Welzijn, Volksgezondheid en Cultuur and the ministry of Onderwijs en Wetenschappen stated that recognition would only be possible under the condition that NGT had a standard basis lexicon (Schermer, 2008). To make this happen, a committee was founded in 1999 to start with standardization and to provide a standard basis lexicon. 
 This project received a lot of comments. Deaf people felt that the natural variation that existed in NGT was not allowed anymore. They felt restricted in their language use and did not want to lose the different signs. Family members of deaf children on the other hand, found the project relieving. The standardization made it easier for them to learn the language. From this point of view standardization also had an economical advantage; it is less expensive to make learning material for one standard form than for multiple variations. 


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Literature:

Schermer, T. 'Taalvariatie en -standaardisatie' In: Baker et al., (red). Gebarentaalwetenschap, een inleiding. Deventer: Van Tricht, 2008: 257-274

Schermer, T. 'Gebarentalen' In: Schermer et al., (red). De Nederlandse Gebarentaal. Van Tricht, 1991: 29-47

     

1 The capital D is used to distinguish between the cultural point of view and the medical point of view. 'Deaf' indicates a cultural and linguistic minority, whereas 'deaf' indicates the disability of not hearing.