Indo-Pakistani Sign Language (IPSL) is the predominant sign language in South Asia, used by at least several hundred thousand deaf signers (2003). As with many sign languages, it is difficult to estimate numbers with any certainty, as the Census of India does not list sign languages and most studies have focused on the north and on urban areas.
The Indian deaf population of 1.1 million is 98% illiterate. In line with oralist philosophy, deaf schools attempt early intervention with hearing aids etc., but these are largely dysfunctional in an impoverished society. As of 1986, only 2% of deaf children attended school.
Pakistan has a deaf population of 0.24 million, which is approximately 7.4% of the overall disabled population in the country.
Read more about Indo-Pakistani Sign Language: Status of Sign Language, Varieties, Grammar, Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words sign language, sign and/or language:
“The symbolic view of things is a consequence of long absorption in images. Is sign language the real language of Paradise?”
—Hugo Ball (1886–1927)
“Woman—for example, look at her case! She turns tantalizing inviting glances on you. You seize her. No sooner does she feel herself in your grasp than she closes her eyes. It is a sign of her mission, the sign by which she says to man: “Blind yourself, for I am blind.””
—Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936)
“It is still not enough for language to have clarity and content ... it must also have a goal and an imperative. Otherwise from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble and from babble to confusion.”
—René Daumal (1908–1944)