This week is New Zealand Sign Language week. It is a good chance for us to learn what life is like for those people who have hearing loss and to help raise awareness for the New Zealand Deaf Community.
New Zealand Sign Language is one of our official languages and is unique to New Zealand. It includes signs for Maori terminology and concepts that you will not find in the sign language of other countries. Sign languages are different all over the world and even in New Zealand people in Wellington may sign slightly differently to people in Christchurch.
One in six New Zealanders have some form of hearing loss and there are thousands of New Zealanders that use NZSL everyday.
Head on over to the Deaf Aotearoa website where there are some great resources and you can check out events happening in your area.
The library also has books on learning NZSL plus books about children who have hearing loss and what life is like for them.