The United Nations General Assembly designated the International Day of Sign Languages, 23 September, an occasion that marks a chance to celebrate and protect the language and culture of deaf people and sign language users, giving deaf people the chance to fully exercise their human rights.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 430 million people across the globe live with some degree of hearing loss. Within that group, more than 70 million are deaf, the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), an international non-governmental organisation representing and promoting deaf rights, reveals.
Worldwide, over 80 percent of deaf individuals live in developing countries, relying on more than 300 distinct sign languages to communicate.
While there is no official number for the hard-of-hearing people in Egypt, the WFD reports that there are more than 7.5 million individuals who are deaf or mute in the nation. Egypt’s deaf community primarily communicates through Egyptian Sign Language (ESL), which is distinct from other sign languages and has its own vocabulary and grammar.
The language developed within Egypt’s deaf communities, with efforts to document and standardize it beginning in the 1980s, when the National Association of the Deaf launched an online dictionary in 1984. For many deaf Egyptians, it serves as their first language.
There is no official data stating how many Egyptians speak ESL. However, according to Basant Sayed, a sign language interpreter, there are around 8 million people in Egypt who use sign language.
Sign languages hold the same status as spoken languages, and their cultural and linguistic identity must be protected through education, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities affirms.
With a central role in daily life, efforts in Egypt are underway to promote ESL more broadly to foster inclusivity and raise awareness among the wider public, as well as professionals who work with the hard-of-hearing community.
The Ministry of Education officially added sign language to school curricula in 2023 as a way to raise awareness of sign language and to help make people with hearing disabilities feel included.
“We have become in urgent need to learn sign language as a language through which we can hear and understand the deaf and dumb people of the country,” the former Minister of Education and Technical Education of Egypt, Reda Hegazy, had said.
In another bid to expand access and strengthen inclusion, Egypt’s Ministry of Social Solidarity announced in May 2025 that it will establish a national body tasked with standardizing sign language across the country to ease communication barriers for millions of Egyptians with hearing impairments.
Under the ministry’s plan, Egypt will begin licensing sign language interpreters and publish a unified dictionary intended to serve as the official reference for public institutions. Officials also announced the creation of a digital platform offering sign language resources, which will be used to support schools, government agencies, and public services.
The digital platform, named Ta’heel, meaning rehabilitation, is developed jointly with the Ministries of Communications, Information Technology, and Labour. That platform is designed to connect people with disabilities to job opportunities tailored to their skills, an attempt to expand their role in the country’s workforce.
To strengthen support, the ministry has launched intensive programs to teach basic sign language to its staff and service providers. As of May, six sessions had been held, training 145 employees, with further programs planned for staff across all 27 governorates.
Every gesture, every sign, is a reminder that language takes many forms, and each deserves to be seen, valued, and preserved.
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