International Day of Sign Languages 2020: Theme, history, significance and importance

The ‘International Day of Sign Languages’ is observed on September 23 every year to raise awareness about the importance of sign languages and to protect the linguistic identity and cultural diversity of all deaf people and other sign language users. 

The theme for ‘International Day of Sign Languages 2020’ is ‘Sign Languages Are for Everyone!’. Apart from this, the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) is issuing a ‘Global Leaders Challenge’.

According to the United Nations (UN), “this challenge aims to promote the use of sign languages by local, national, and global leaders in partnership with national associations of deaf people in each country, as well as other deaf-led organisations.”

The first-ever ‘International Day of Sign Languages’ was celebrated in 2018 with an aim to recognize the human rights of people who are deaf. The theme for 2018 was ‘With Sign Language, Everyone is Included!’ and for 2019 it was ‘Sign Language Rights for All’.

Also read: Underreported India: How India’s deaf community faces the stigma of being different?

WFD, a federation of 135 national associations that represents nearly 70 million deaf people globally, first proposed the idea to celebrate this day.

It was then that the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) declared September 23 as ‘International Day for Sign Languages’, as it also commemorates the date that the WFD was established in 1951.

There are over 72 million deaf people globally and more than 80% of them live in developing countries. Collectively, they use more than 300 different sign languages. But unfortunately, only 2% of them have access to sign languages.

Notably, September is observed as the ‘Deaf Awareness Month’. The last week of September is recognized as the ‘International Week of the Deaf’, while the last Sunday of September is celebrated as the ‘World Deaf Day’.