South African Sign Language (SASL) is the primary sign language used by deaf people in South Africa. It is the only official sign language in South Africa, where it has been recognized as a national language since 2003. SASL is also one of the country’s official languages alongside English and Afrikaans.
There are other less formal regional sign languages that have developed in South Africa, but these are not standardized enough to be considered their own dialects of SASL.
In South Africa, as in many other countries, Deaf people were historically excluded from society; they were not allowed to learn or use sign language and so were forced to live isolated from their communities. In 1852 The Cape Colony established an institution called The Deaf and Dumb School which offered classroom instruction using only English (Stokoe & Mayberry). In 1892 a school for the deaf opened at Grey College in Bloemfontein which focused on manual education with limited use of sign language. It was believed that if Deaf children grew up without signing, they would eventually become able to speak normally (Stokoe & Mayberry).
