The Italian government, already in 2009, had ratified the “UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities”, which contained specific rules relating to the matter. But the true recognition of the linguistic identity of deaf people had not been done.
Fortunately, 12 years later this gap was finally filled. Article 34-ter of the decree, in fact, “recognizes, promotes and protects the Italian sign language (Lis) and the Italian tactile sign language (List)”.
Lis is not a simple mimic or abbreviated translation of Italian. It is a language in all respects, with its own grammatical, lexical, syntactic and morphological rules and combines manual / gestural components with other non-manual ones.
There are currently several LIS learning opportunities in Italy.
Among them, we remember the specialized courses organized by the ENS itself, which allow you to acquire the skills necessary to become interpreters or communication assistants.
Finally, a future decree will define the training courses necessary for access to the interpreter professions and to regulate the transitional rules for those who already practice these professions.