Sign language consists of the use of hands, lips and features of body language to communicate among the deaf, as well as between deaf and hearing people. The best approach to find interpreters is to search the Internet for “sign language interpreter” followed by a city, a state or a country name, depending on the specific location.

You may be able to contact an individual interpreter or the suggested interpreter service agencies, associations for the deaf, training schools, sign language bureaus or registries. It is important to keep in mind that sign languages are independent from their oral counterparts and probably originated before them. English is a spoken language common to the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, but these countries use totally different kinds of sign language. On the other hand, in South Africa there are ten other oral official languages apart from English, but only one sign language.

Something similar takes place with the American Sign Language, which is used in the US and Canada, a country where English and French are spoken. The Mexican sign language is similar to the American one. In Spain there are three different sign languages that coexist, named Spanish, Catalan and Valencian.

Sign languages have their own grammar and syntax.