South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa is due to sign into law a constitutional amendment to recognise sign language as the country’s 12th official language.
It will give sign language equal status as the other official languages - Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu.
The country will become Africa's fourth nation to recognise sign language as an official language. The others are Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda.
At least 400,000 South Africans are known to use sign language, but the official number of those with hearing impairment could be higher.
Cultural heritage
The South African Sign Language Bill will be signed into law on Wednesday, the presidency said.
Ramaphosa praised South African Sign Language as an indigenous language that was important to the country's cultural heritage.
"It has its own distinct grammatical structures and lexicon and it is independent of any other language," he said in a statement.
"The recognition of South African Sign Language (SASL) as the 12th official language is an important step towards the realisation of the rights of persons who are deaf or hard of hearing," he added.
The national parliament approved the amendment in May after it was initiated by the justice ministry.
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