"Italy must absolutely ratify the agreements on the rights of the disabled, but our Parliament is very lazy on certain issues,” said Prof. Tullio De Mauro at the presentation of the first volume edited by the National Agency for Protection and Assistance of the Deaf entitled “Signs Speak - Research Prospects on Italian Sign Language (I segni parlano. Prospettive di ricerca sulla Lingua dei segni italiana). According to Prof. De Mauro, sign language no longer has any cultural or scientific obstacles to its recognition, but it still needs to be ratified by the world of politics.
“In Italy,” De Mauro explained “there are thousands and thousands of sign language users who deserve as much attention as other minority language users. It’s not easy if you take into consideration that although recognition of the linguistic right to use and teach minority languages was established as a constitutional principle in 1948, we had to wait until 1999 – more than fifty years later – to have a law enforcing the sixth article of the Italian Constitution.” The hope, De Mauro underlines, is that things will move more quickly for Italian Sign Language, but Parliamentary activity takes time. “The Italian Parliament is a little lazy when there are no immediate interests in play,” De Mauro points out. “The population of deaf citizens has interests, but these individuals are few and spread throughout Italy.”
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