South Africa
Sawubona. This is our story.
Twenty-seven years to be the twelfth official language.
Access on this page: Signed: South African Sign Language — pending How this page is tested
In 1996 the Deaf Federation of South Africa asked the country's language board to make South African Sign Language official. On 10 December 2013 the whole world watched why it mattered: the interpreter beside the presidents at Nelson Mandela's memorial was signing nothing at all. DeafSA called it 'a total mockery of the language', and said it had warned the governing party about him a year earlier. On 19 July 2023 the Constitution Eighteenth Amendment was signed: SASL is the twelfth official language of South Africa. The law is ours, at last. Now the screens.
SASL video — this story, in our language
A named South African Deaf creator tells this page's story in SASL. 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.
The world saw the fake. We got the real thing into the Constitution.
Now we deliver it — ourselves.
What do you want to do?
-
I want access
Watch.Understand.Belong.
Television, film, and services — in SASL, 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 put the twelfth official language on the screen — 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 South Africa today
The law now says:
SASL is an official language of the Republic — section 6 of the Constitution, as amended on 19 July 2023, after the National Assembly's vote on 2 May 2023. The request that started it was made in 1996.
And we know the exhausting part: an official language without an accreditation system for its interpreters. DeafSA published its own policy on the provision and regulation of interpreters in 2015, because after 2013 nobody else had.
Official at last. The delivery comes next — made by us. That is what ally is: Deaf and blind creators, paid to make the access — SASL, 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.