Singapore
Hello. This is our story.
Singapore has no official sign language. Yet.
Access on this page: Signed: Singapore Sign Language — pending How this page is tested
Singapore Sign Language is the Deaf community's own — but no law names it. Since Singapore ratified the UN disability convention on 30 November 2012, the Singapore Association for the Deaf has asked for interpreters and subtitles on every national broadcast. In April 2020 it got the first: the May Day message went out on Channel 5 with a live SgSL interpreter, and the ministry now requires SgSL on broadcasts of national significance — the National Day Rally, the Budget. On 20 March 2023 the government told Parliament that a study on recognising SgSL as Singapore's official sign language was underway. In 2025 the community launched its own video relay service. The recognition is coming. The delivery, we are already building.
SgSL video — this story, in our language
A named Singaporean Deaf creator tells this page's story in SgSL. The video is the page, and the text is its transcript's cousin. This video existing is the reason this page is allowed to exist.
No law names our language yet.
We are not waiting for one to deliver it.
What do you want to do?
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I want access
Watch.Understand.Belong.
Television, film, and services — in SgSL, captions, or audio description.
Go -
I create access
Create.Get paid.Be seen.
Deaf signers, interpreters, captioners, audio describers — your work, your name, your income.
Go -
I provide access
One API.Every screen.
Platforms, governments, cinemas, companies — deliver real access with one integration.
Go -
I back access
Host.Sponsor.Invest.
The builders who will make Singapore's sign language visible before the law catches up — be part of the firsts.
Go
More than one of these can be yours. The access is for you, and you can be paid to help make it.
Access in Singapore today
The law now says:
Broadcasts of significant national and public interest must carry SgSL interpretation — a Ministry of Digital Development and Information requirement since April 2020. The Enabling Masterplan 2030 commits the government to access to information and communication for Deaf and hard-of-hearing people. And a study on recognising SgSL as the official sign language has been underway since at least March 2023.
And we know the hard math: two Deaf and about six hearing staff interpreters, with 55 community interpreters on call, for an estimated half a million people with hearing loss — of whom more than 5,400 are registered with SADeaf. You cannot schedule your emergency for when the interpreter is free.
Fewer than seventy interpreters cannot carry our language. A platform can — made by us, paid to us. That is what ally is: Deaf and blind creators, paid to make the access — SgSL, captions, audio description — delivered to any screen.
In plain words
The law is on your side. What is missing is the service — and that is what gets built here, with the community.
Why captions alone are not enough → Why sign language
Talk to us
Tell us who you are
Write in your own language. We reply in it.
- Emailpartners@a11y.media
- Video messageSend a signed video — no writing needed
Contact us by form, email, or a signed video message — never voice-only.