“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
These are the words of former president Nelson Mandela.
During a visit to my rural village this Christmas, I encountered a reality that unsettled me deeply.
There is a young boy there — no older than 11 — who cannot speak.
He communicates through sign language and attends a school for pupils with special needs, where he is taught in that language.
On the surface, this appears to be progress, even compassion.
After all, the child is receiving specialised education tailored to his needs.
But beneath this seemingly benevolent arrangement lies a quieter, more painful truth.
The language through which this child exists in the world is confined to spaces designated as “special,” leaving him isolated in the very places where belonging should come most naturally.
In our society, sign language is still treated as a language only for those who cannot speak.
It is reserved for special schools, special classrooms and special programmes.
While these institutions play an important role, they also unintentionally turn a full, complex human language into a marker of separation.
The result is that this boy can communicate fluently at school, yet remain effectively voiceless in his own home, among his own people, and within his own community.
He is linguistically alive in one space and linguistically stranded in another.
That contradiction should disturb us.
This raises a troubling question: how can we claim to integrate someone into society while refusing to learn the language through which they exist?
We often speak of inclusion as though it is something that can be achieved by placing people with disabilities into separate institutions designed for them.
But inclusion that requires no change from broader society is not inclusion at all, it is a form of managed distance.
It allows the majority to feel compassionate without being inconvenienced by transformation.
Communication is not merely about exchanging words; it is about recognition, belonging and dignity.
To be understood is to be seen as fully human.
When a child is surrounded by people who cannot understand him — not because they are incapable, but because they were never taught — then the failure is not his.
It is ours. By default, he is excluded, not by malice, but by neglect. And exclusion, even when unintentional, remains exclusion.
We cannot celebrate our values of empathy and social justice while quietly maintaining systems that render certain people perpetually unheard.
This is where the idea of “special” spaces becomes morally complicated.
Special schools, special services and special programmes are often framed as evidence of care.
And indeed, many educators and caregivers within these spaces work with deep dedication.
But when difference is consistently managed through separation, society avoids confronting the deeper task: reshaping public life so that it is accessible to all.
The burden of adaptation is placed almost entirely on those who are already marginalised.
The child must learn to live in a world that will not learn his language.
Why, then, is sign language not taught in all schools as a compulsory and necessary language?
If we truly believe in inclusion, the responsibility to adapt cannot rest solely on those with disabilities.
It must be shared by society at large. Teaching sign language to all pupils would ensure that children who cannot speak are never made to feel foreign in their own communities.
They would not need to be “included” as an afterthought — they would simply belong.
Their presence would not require special arrangements or awkward accommodations; it would be woven into the ordinary fabric of social life.
We already teach subjects and skills that many pupils may never use in adulthood.
Some will never apply advanced algebra. Others will forget most of the history they memorised for exams.
Yet we recognise that education is not only about utility; it is about shaping the kind of society we want to inhabit.
Surely the ability to communicate with a fellow human being — regardless of how that human being speaks — deserves at least the same priority.
A society that learns sign language is not doing people with disabilities a favour; it is correcting an imbalance it created in the first place.
There is also something profoundly symbolic about whose languages we deem worthy of being shared.
We celebrate multilingualism when it involves global languages of commerce and power.
We encourage children to learn languages that open doors to economic opportunity.
But when it comes to sign language, we treat it as a specialised tool for a marginal group, rather than as part of our collective human repertoire.
This reveals an uncomfortable hierarchy of whose voices we consider worth the effort to understand.
The boy I met does not need fixing. His language does not need to be hidden away in special institutions.
What needs transformation is our understanding of communication itself.
We need to move beyond the idea that spoken language is the default and everything else is a deviation.
Human expression has always taken many forms — spoken, written, signed, embodied.
To privilege one form as “normal” is not a neutral choice; it is a political and moral one.
Until sign language is treated as a shared language rather than a specialised one, we will continue to build walls where bridges should exist.
And those walls will not be made of hostility, but of habit, convenience and unexamined assumptions.
They will be easy to ignore because they are invisible to those who do not have to live behind them.
But for children like the boy in my village, these walls are felt every day — in the silence of a home that cannot hear him, and in a society that has not yet learnt how to listen.
Dr Olwethu Waka, lecturer (UWC), Ph.D (mathematics) (UCT) M.Sc (cum laude)(mathematics) (UCT)
