The status and standardisation of Dutch Sign Language At the moment, the Dutch Sign Language (NGT) is not recognized as an official language in the Netherlands. The only three official languages are Dutch, Frysian and Nedersaksisch. The status of a sign language is, however, very strongly related to the status of Deaf1 people within a society and the role of sign language in their education (Schermer, 1991; Schermer, 2008). In places where the use of a sign language is prohibited in the education of deaf people, that sign language has a clear minority position that is very strongly related to the minority position of the sign language users. This was also the case in the Netherlands: signs were not allowed at schools for the deaf and deaf people were ashamed to use signs outside their houses. Since the 1960s, however, the status of sign languages has changed quickly. An emancipation of the deaf took place, this was partly due to the fact that linguistic research had demonstrated that sign languages are real, natural languages and that Deaf people have their own culture (Schermer, 2008). In the 1980s, the general opinion towards communication in the educational environment changed from solely oral communication, which meant only speaking and no signing, to total communication, which included pictures, sign systems and sign languages. The emancipation has come so far that most Deaf people are proud of their language and want it to be recognized by the law, so that Deaf people have the same possibilities with NGT as hearing people have with the Dutch and Frysian language. This emancipation process is not only happening in the Netherlands but also in other countries, for instance the USA and South Africa (Reagan, 2001). Some states in the USA have already recognized American Sign Language (ASL) as an official language. But the Netherlands is still lagging behind at this point. To change this, several requests to make the recognition happen have been made since 1980. But the ministry of Health and Welfare and the ministry of Education stated that this would only be possible under a few conditions. Due to the limited space in this paper, only the condition that is considered to be the most controversial will be discussed here, this is the condition that NGT must have a standard basic lexicon (Schermer, 2008; Schermer, 2001). A standard basic lexicon is needed so there is a clear standard form of the language, like the Dutch language has Algemeen Nederlands (General Dutch). Such a standard form is also necessary for making language acquisition methods. NGT did not have such a form though; little was known of the lexicon of NGT since only a small inventory of the used signs was done and almost no dictionaries existed. Furthermore, the Netherlands used to have five schools for the Deaf and all these schools developed their own signs. Therefore NGT had a large amount of regional variation. Much work had thus to be done to establish a standard form, so in 1999, a committee was founded to start with standardisation and to provide a standard basic lexicon in the so-called STABOL-project. The committee consisted of native deaf signers, native hearing signers and linguists; together they discussed potential standard signs, with aspects as frequency, form, variations and iconicity of the sign taken into account. This project received a lot of negative comments. Firstly, the committee itself had its doubts about this form of language planning. Based on previous experiences and research into standardisation of spoken languages, they felt they had to be very careful not to interfere with the natural processes of standardisation (Schermer, 2001). Secondly, is it reasonable to try to standardise a language that has no written form? There is no standard spoken Dutch either, only a standard written form (Schermer, 2001). Thirdly, the Deaf community did not like the standardisation because they felt that 'their' variation was not allowed anymore. They felt restricted in their language use and did not want to lose the different signs. This feeling was partly due to the term 'standard'; people were under the impression that the standard signs were the only 'good' signs. The committee, however, never intended for this to happen. They emphasized that standardisation was necessary for teaching purposes, for a basic dictionary and for recognition and that non-standard signs were not meant to be labelled as 'wrong'. Family members of deaf children, on the other hand, found the project relieving. The standardisation made it easier for them to learn the language since less signs were used during the sign courses. Furthermore, both the parents and the children would learn the same signs at respectively the signs courses and at school. This would improve their communication. For official instances, standardisation had also an economical advantage; it is less expensive to make learning materials for one standard form than for multiple variations. In conclusion, the standardisation took a significant amount of time and became a very big project. But although the STABOL-project had advantages and disadvantages, it is still a very important step towards the recognition of NGT by the law and that remains the main goal. Although not all members of the Deaf community agreed with the standardisation, and it is still a big issue, they do all agree that recognition of NGT would be a huge improvement for the status of the language and for the status and education for the Deaf. ------------------------------------------- References: Reagan, T. 'Language planning and policy' In: Lucas, Ceil, (red). The Sociolinguistics of Sign Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001: 145-180 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 Schermer, T. From variant to standard: An overview of the standardisation process of the lexicon of Sign Language of the Netherlands (SLN) over two decades. Paper presented at the "Conference Dictionaries and Standardisation of Languages" on November 7-8 2001, at the Gallaudet University Kellogg Conference Center in Washington. www.nederlandsgebarencentrum.nl; last visite 12 October, 2012 1 The capital D is used to distinguish between the cultural point of view and the medical point of view. The adjective 'Deaf' (with upper case D) indicates a cultural and linguistic minority and 'deaf' (with lower case d) indicates the disability of not hearing.