{"id":7070,"date":"2012-08-30T04:31:09","date_gmt":"2012-08-29T17:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/?p=7070"},"modified":"2012-08-30T05:33:10","modified_gmt":"2012-08-29T18:33:10","slug":"signs-of-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/2012\/08\/signs-of-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Signs of change?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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London is about to experience Olympic fever<\/a> again with the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympic Games taking place tonight. Already disabled athletes have started appearing in the city and interacting with locals and other visitors.<\/p>\n

The Paralympics provide a great occasion to focus attention on the issues and difficulties faced by disabled people across the world. The BBC reported<\/a> earlier today that:<\/p>\n

\n“if Chinese athletes perform as well in the Paralympic Games [a China did in the Olympic Games] it could help change attitudes towards disabled people in China. The Beijing Paralympic Games in 2008 played a huge part in changing attitudes, but campaigners say China still has a lot to do”.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Locally, the Head of Scope Cymru has made a similar point<\/a> in the context of a survey showing attitudes to disabled people are worsening in Wales.<\/p>\n

Those of us interested in endangered languages might think of sign languages and the Deaf community (since all sign languages are endangered and subject to pressure from speakers of majority spoken languages), however, as UK Deaf Sport<\/a> reminds us: “many Deaf people do not consider themselves disabled, particularly in physical or intellectual ability. Rather, we consider ourselves to be part of a cultural and linguistic minority”. There is in fact a separate Deaflympics<\/a>, “the second oldest multi-sport and cultural festival in the world, with a proud history stretching back to the first Games in Paris, in 1924” and sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee. It was recently announced<\/a> by Craig Crowley, President of the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf, that the next Summer Deaflympics will be held in Sophia, Bulgaria in 2013 (following the cancellation of plans for Athens).<\/p>\n

The visibility (no pun intended) of sign languages among linguists, and the wider community, has been slowly increasing in recent years, however, like other minorities and the disabled there is still some way to go. For example, the list of DoBeS projects<\/a> of the Volkswagen Foundation does not include any sign languages at all, despite the information for applicants<\/a> [.pdf] stating that “documentation projects may focus on endangered dialects, moribund languages as well as sign languages”. The Endangered Languages Documentation Programme at SOAS has so far funded eight projects on sign languages, namely:<\/p>\n