The GIVE ME A SIGN project was designed to respond effectively to the needs of hearing-impaired people and sign language users with regard to multilingualism. Multilingualism, as a means not only of developing and supporting diversity among the partner countries but also of preserving harmony and understanding among them, is strongly supported by the European Commission and regarded as “one of the cornerstones of the European project”. According to the objectives set by the European Commission, citizens should have the opportunity to learn at least two foreign languages from an early age.

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As with spoken languages, sign language is not universal, and every country has its own national sign language. Sign languages emerge naturally within communities and change over time. In international encounters, hearing-impaired people actually use international gestures, which can be regarded as an auxiliary system rather than a sign language. However, international gestures are no substitute for properly learning other sign languages as a second language. Because the national sign language of hearing-impaired people has no connection to spoken and written languages, they need to learn bilingualism alongside their own mother tongue. If a hearing-impaired person wants to communicate with another hearing-impaired person who uses a different sign language, they may need four languages to do so: their own native sign language, the written language of their country, the target written language and the target sign language. In this particular case, we can easily show that written languages pose linguistic barriers for hearing-impaired people.

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