The People of Determination Empowerment Council and the Positive Spirit Initiative of the Dubai Police recently organized sign language workshops for 600 kids to honor the International Day of Sign Language on 23 Sep. Al Mawakeb School co-hosted the workshops.
The history of world sign language day
One of the earliest accounts of sign language is found in Plato's Cratylus, which was written down in the 15th century BC. Up until the 19th century, nothing was known about historical sign languages. The information was limited to manual alphabets, also referred to as fingerspelling methods. These were developed to convert words from spoken to sign language. The first manual alphabet is thought to have been created by Pedro Ponce de Leon. There are over 300 distinct sign languages.
The first-ever International Day of Sign Languages was observed on 23 September 2018, as it falls on the anniversary of the World Federation of the Deaf which was established in 1951.