Egyptian Sign Language is a
sign language
Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign l ...
used by members of the deaf community in
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
. Although there are no official statistics on the number of deaf people or the number of people who use Egyptian Sign Language as their primary language,
Gallaudet University
Gallaudet University ( ) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing. It was founded in 1864 as a grammar school for both deaf and blind children. It was the first sc ...
's library resources website quotes a 1999 estimate of 2 million hearing impaired children, while a 2007 study by the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
places the prevalence of hearing loss in Egypt at 16.02% across all age groups. Egyptian Sign Language is not formally recognized by the government.
[
Linguistically, Egyptian Sign Language is not related to other sign languages of the Arab World, such as ]Jordanian Sign Language
Levantine Arabic Sign Language, also known as Syro-Palestinian Sign Language, is the sign language used by Deaf and hearing people of Jordan, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially ...
, Palestinian Sign Language
Levantine Arabic Sign Language, also known as Syro-Palestinian Sign Language, is the sign language used by Deaf and hearing people of Jordan, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially ...
, or Libyan Sign Language
Libyan Sign Language is the deaf sign language of Libya. It appears to belong to the Arab sign language family
The Arab sign-language family is a family of sign languages spread across the Arab Middle East. Its extent is not yet known, because ...
.[
]
See also
* Deafness in Egypt According to The Deaf Unit Cairo, there are approximately 1.2 million deaf and hard of hearing individuals in Egypt aged five and older. Deafness can be detected in certain cases at birth or throughout childhood in terms of communication delays and ...
References
External links
Egyptian Sign Puddle
– Dictionary of Egyptian Sign Language (under construction)
YouTube ESL Dictionary
– Animated Dictionary of Egyptian Sign Language (under construction)
The Deaf Unit
– Private School in Cairo, associated with The Nardine Association NGO – جمعية الناردين
{{sign language navigation
Arab sign languages
Languages of Egypt