Monday, December 16, 2013

Was Sign Language Interpreter at Mandela Memorial Fake?

December 14, 2013 4:45pm

(Updated 7:16 p.m.) Contrary to popular belief, sign languages around the world differ from one another, as each language has its own equivalent sign system.
 
This is the reason why sign language interpreters in the Philippines can't tell whether the man who was supposed to be signing for the deaf at Nelson Mandela's memorial service was a fraud.
 
"We can't tell. African Sign Language and Filipino Sign Language are different," Maria Veronica Perez, dean at the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde School of Deaf Education and Applied Studies, told GMA News Online.
 
"The only ones who can say if the interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial ceremony was not qualified – I'm not comfortable calling him 'fake – are the deaf community of South Africa and the recognized interpreters there," she added.

JantThamsanqa jie, a 34-year-old South African sign language interpreter, gestures during a speech by India's President Pranab Mukherjee at a memorial service for the late South African President Nelson Mandela at the FNB soccer stadium in Johannesburg on Wednesday, December 10. Deaf associations denounced him as a "fraud" for gesticulating gibberish before a global audience of millions, but he defended his actions, saying he had a sudden attack of schizophrenia. Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach
According to an earlier Reuters report, DeafSA, South Africa's leading deaf association, condemned the presence of a man at the memorial for Mandela for allegedly gesticulating gibberish before a global audience of millions...To read the rest of the article, visit this page: http://shar.es/OcwwR 
via @gmanews, JDS/HS, GMA News

1 comment:

Unknown said...

That was so embarrassing. Just imagine the situation when the speaker is trying to say something and sign language interpreter is interpreting something else. I wonder how that happened in the first place.

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Kristo Jackal
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