Peace for eleven

Two months on a mental health ward. Two months of locked up belongings, restricted outside access and making friends with wonderful strangers. Two months of using sign language for the first time and flying in a bubble of autistic joy. For all its faults, the mental health ward was wonderful.


There are lots of ways to communicate using sign. It's important to recognise the difference between gesture languages and formalised sign language. Gesture uses hand signals to convey meaning. It is specific to the people communicating, and is almost like a personal language between two individuals. Over time, gestures become ingrained, so there is no need to clarify what they mean. This is how many of the world's 300 sign languages began, and how sign languages grow and evolve in the modern world.

Gesture is my protected language, and I spoke a combination of verbal English and gesture on the mental health ward. My favourite gesture was Peace For Eleven. I was in room 11, and my locker was subsequently number 11 too. Whenever staff asked my room number, I held up two fingers in the peace sign to look like the two ones of the written number 11 and said, "I'm peace for eleven." It helped me remember what room I was staying in, and made the staff smile.

Gesture-based communication systems are universal and pop up all over the place. From the hand gestures we all use whilst speaking to the gesture space of iPhone touch controls, you have undoubtedly communicated in a gesture system today. So what makes gesture a protected language? Well, nothing. Gesture isn't a language, and it isn't legally protected. When I was in hospital, I was using a personal communication system based on British Sign Language. None of the nurses had enough experience with diverse communication to have a meaningful conversation with me, so they spoke English until I was well enough to become my own interpreter. This is wrong. When I am well again, my first campaign project will be the presence of specialist advocates and interpreters on mental health wards. It is a service severely lacking. 

Some sign languages are protected. In the UK, British Sign Language (BSL) was recognised as a language in 2003. BSL has between 80,000 and 125,000 regular users, and meets the linguistic definition of a language through its defining characteristics. BSL is not a protected language in the way Welsh and Scottish Gaelic are protected, though. Welsh schools are bilingual (or strictly Welsh), and in all official capacities Welsh and English must be treated equally.  The British Sign Language Bill, passed in January this year, aims to see BSL treated equally to English in the UK. At the moment, Deaf people are not given adequate access to BSL in official settings such as healthcare and business environments. If the BSL Bill is written into law, the government must actively promote the use of BSL and protect the interests, heritage and welfare of BSL users.

Lots of people are shocked to hear that BSL doesn't have legal protection. I said gesture is my protected language- what does that mean in a world where sign and gesture are not protected? Gesture is my registered language. This means it's recorded in my medical notes that I communicate through gesture, and health providers have to attempt to listen to my gesture-based communication. I still have to conduct most of my medical appointments over the phone, and social services still leave voicemails I can't listen to. There is a crisis of communication in our healthcare system, and the Deaf voices calling for protection should be heard. Many are forced to take family members to medical appointments to interpret. We live in an age where everyone should be afforded privacy, confidentiality and choice. Sign and gesture language users are not being given these rights, and the system needs to change fast to rectify itself.

British Sign Language is a rich and diverse language, and I recommend a short BSL course to anyone who wants to understand disabled joy and the power of adaptive communication. If you have ever tried to learn the numbers 1-20 in BSL, you will know there are regional accents. I have studied sign in both North Yorkshire (with a teacher from Lancashire) and in Oxford. Many hearing people think sign languages were artificially created by hearing people to help Deaf people, and are surprised at the lack of uniformity in sign. Sign languages are incredibly diverse, vary hugely by town, community and country and evolve using each other's features just like spoken languages. If you are looking for an internet rabbit hole, try tracing the origins of modern sign in Britain and Ireland through Old British Sign Language, through to BSL, Sign Supported English, Irish Sign Language and Northern Irish Sign Language.

Being given access to gesture-based communication has been one of the most profound experiences of my life. It has opened up a whole world to me in both deaf and hearing spaces. I can be myself and speak freely when using gesture, and now I am out in the community in a hearing world, I am afraid my gestures will be taken away. I now understand just how important legal protection becomes for users of minority languages- we get what is legally mandated and nothing more. When the system changes, disabled languages need to be viewed as equal.

I'd like to learn more






I want to learn BSL

Me too! I'm trying to find in person classes, but here are some resources for now

YouTube. Commanding hands have excellent videos for serious beginners. Jessica Kellgren Fozard has videos with beginner and niche signs for a wide audience. Check her out if you want to sign about queer stuff.

Signature. A charity that connects deaf people to sign language classes.

Universities often offer short BSL courses during term time. It is often a case of googling, sending emails and seeing what comes up.

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