Abstract The 2017 recommendation by the Constitutional Review Committee of the South African Parliament that South African Sign Language (SASL) be added to the Constitution as the country’s 12th official language has been forwarded to parliament for action, but, as of the writing of this article, it has yet to be approved. Should parliament accept the committee’s recommendation, there are a number of important issues that will need to be considered and resolved. As background for such consideration, in this article a very brief overview of the nature of sign languages in general (and of SASL in particular) will be provided. We will then turn to an examination of language policies that address sign languages in different national contexts, and will consider the case to be made for recognising SASL as South Africa’s twelfth official language. We will also explore what such recognition would entail, since making SASL an official language is in some ways similar to the status of the other eleven official languages of South Africa, but in other ways would be unique.

中文翻译：

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第十二种官方语言？南非手语的宪法未来

摘要南非国会宪法审查委员会于2017年建议将南非手语（SASL）作为该国的第12种官方语言加入宪法中，但已提交国会采取行动，但截至本文撰写之日，尚未得到批准。如果议会接受委员会的建议，则有许多重要问题需要加以考虑和解决。作为进行这种考虑的背景，本文将简要概述一般的手语（尤其是SASL）的性质。然后，我们将研究针对不同国家背景下的手语的语言政策，并将考虑将SASL识别为南非的第十二种官方语言。