President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed into law the South African Sign Language Bill during a ceremony at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Wednesday.
This comes after the National Assembly approved an amendment to Section 6 of the Constitution on May 2nd to incorporate South African Sign Language (SASL) as an official language.
The Presidency says SASL is an indigenous language that has its own distinct grammatical structures and lexicon and is independent of any other language.
The new legislation seeks to advance cultural acceptance of SASL, secure the realisation of the rights of deaf and hard of hearing people, promote inclusiveness, and prevent or eradicate unfair disability discrimination.
South Africa becomes the fourth country on the African continent to recognise sign language as an official language; other countries are Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda.
Below is an infographic that illustrates countries that recognise sign language as an official language:
