Sign Languages of the Right to Use an Indigenous Sign Language

This is a core tenet of EUD's working objectives and significant change has occurred over the past years. Successes include the European parliament's resolutions on the recognition of sign languages in 1988 and again in 1998 and the European Commission sponsored Sign Languages Project (1996-1997) carried out by EUD. These actions have acted as a catalyst for member associations to work with their national governments in securing practical, and in several cases, constitutional or legal recognition of their respective national sign language.

In the past years EUD has campaigned successfully together with its members to increase the visibility of sign language/s in Europe, both at national and European level. EUD has also been successful to place the issue of recognition of sign languages higher on the political agenda as well as to improve its status compared with spoken languages. EUD continues to strive for full and legal recognition of Sign language/s by the European Union, the Council of Europe and all EU national governments as a minority language, just like they have recognised certain spoken languages as minority and regional languages. There is no ground for excluding sign languages, especially not on linguistic grounds, since research have since long shown that sign languages ARE languages. The major barrier to tear down is the attitude of governments and legal advisers who do not believe that sign languages are real languages and do not realize or understand the importance of sign languages for Deaf people. We have already come a long way, but we are not there yet! We need your ongoing and strong support in this matter, both at national and European level.