Deaf Australia and the Deaf community want to make 13th April a permanent official celebration fixture on the Deaf Community’s calendar, and we’d like to call it “Auslan Day”.
The 13th of April 1989 was when the first Auslan (Australian Sign Language) dictionary was published. Previously Auslan was known as sign language. This publication officially gave our community a name for our language, and Auslan was then recognised as a community language in Australia in 1991. Auslan Day is a great way to celebrate this.
It is intended to be a great platform for Auslan users to proudly promote Auslan as our native and preferred language for Deaf people, as well as recognising the culture and history of the Deaf community.
Deaf Australia is encouraging members of the Deaf community to use the logo provided by us for all events planned that celebrate Auslan Day.
This will promote and increase awareness of Auslan and its community of users to the broader Australian community. It will also create momentum in pushing for Auslan to be formally recognised as an official minority language in Australia.