This had referred to the rights of speakers of all minority languages including sign languages.

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"Sign languages ... evolve in a community of users, and are not signed versions of spoken languages, " the university said in a press release.

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Reading and writing problems appear to develop in deaf people because sign languages are not phonemic in the sense that a spoken language is.

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In a sign of the times, Turkish and English are the languages of instruction at a top private school in Irbil.

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The figures also showed that not all languages were spoken - with 22, 000 people using sign language.

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One of the apps that has been getting a lot of buzz is Word Lens: an iPhone app that instantly translates languages on signs instantly - fire up the camera, point it at a sign and off you go!

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