Myth: Sign Languages cannot express complex ideas
Fact: Despite the delusion that sign language is not a “real language”, it is a very rich and complex language. It has got the same potential to express feelings, emotions as well as complex ideas as the spoken languages do. That is true that sign language has less vocabulary than spoken languages, but that does not stop to express one’s thought clearly. It has got its own grammar, vocabulary and dialects. Culture and linguistics have a wide range of complex concepts in sign language. Just like spoken languages, Sign languages have also evolved over the period. There is no “universal” sign language. Every country has its own fully-fledged and complex sign language. Though there are some signs that has limited gestures to express some thoughts.
There are some television programs for the deaf community, where a small window is appeared on the bottom left/right corner of the screen, having a signer which uses the sign language to help the deaf people in understanding the program that is being broadcasted. For example, Paddy Ladd is an English deaf scholar, author and a great researcher in deaf culture. In 1984, he made a show on BBC, named as “See Hear”, which had both signer and speakers. Even some press conferences have signer at the corner of their stage.
