China's State Language Commission released the first national standards for sign language last year after seven years of meticulous research.

Implemented from July 1, 2018, the National List of Common Words for Universal Sign Language contains 5,000 common words of daily usage and is expected to help those with hearing disabilities across the country to communicate more effectively.

Earlier this year, Chinese hospitals began adopting the sign language to treat hearing-impaired patients.

Chinese telecom giant Huawei meanwhile launched an AI-powered mobile app StorySign that translates children's books into the sign language to enhance the learning experiences of kids with hearing disability.

Related story: Unleashing dreams and protecting rights of the hearing-impaired

These are just a few recent instances of China's commitment toward protecting the linguistic rights of the hearing-impaired and empowering them with easy access to the sign language. Although standardization of the sign language is relatively new in China, the Asian giant has historic records of sign languages in one form or the other dating back to over a thousand years from the Tang Dynasty period. 

China is home to 20.54 million deaf people, according to the latest data available on China Disabled Persons' Federation website, which is nearly 30 percent of the 72 million deaf people worldwide as per the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) figures. 

As the world celebrates the International Day of Sign Languages (IDSL) on September 23, which also kick starts the International Week of the Deaf (September 23-29), there's a global focus on the full realization of linguistic rights of people with hearing disability. Appropriately, the IDSL's theme for this year is "Sign Language Rights for All."

There are more than 300 different sign languages collectively used by deaf people globally and also a standardized international sign language, which is used by deaf people in international meetings and informally while traveling and socializing.

China has its own sign language, also known as 中国手语 (zhongguo shouyu, literally meaning "China hand language"). The Chinese Sign Language (CSL or ZGS) has several regional variations or dialects, with the Northern (Beijing) and Southern (Shanghai) versions forming the two most commonly used dialects in the country.

In CSL, the signs resemble written Chinese characters, just like the British (BSL) or American (ASL) sign languages draw their reference from the English alphabets. The Northern and Southern dialects however differ in both the lexicon and the use of facial expression or mouthing, according to Jun Hui Yang, an expert on the history of deaf education in China. The authorized dictionary reflects the Southern dialect, she noted in a paper on CSL.

Jun, in another essay published as part of the book Sign Bilingualism, traced back the history of sign languages in China to at least a thousand years. "The first historical record of the use of signs for communication dates back to the Tang Dynasty (618-959 CE) in which the Chinese word 手语 (shouyu) for "sign language" appears in classical literature," noted the senior lecturer in deaf studies at the University of Central Lancashire, UK.

Jun also cited evidence from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) periods to prove that deaf people in China were familiar with the use of signs as a mode of communication. A particularly vivid example comes from Xuan Ding's biography of a deaf man.

"Xuan describes how this deaf individual communicated with his hearing mother through a system of home-signs that expressed the concepts for 'bread,' 'fish,' 'meat,' and 'mother,' and that he would use facial expressions and gestures to inform neighbors about how well his mother was or was not eating," Jun wrote.

"Xuan also remarks that many deaf people would use each of the five fingers to represent five different concepts: the thumb-up represented 'sky,' the extended index finger 'land,' the middle finger 'father,' the ring finger 'mother,' and the extended little finger 'wife.' Interestingly, some of the signs mentioned (such as the ones used to express 'bread' and 'fish') are still in use today," she added.

The CSL was eventually standardized in a process that began in the 1950s. "The process toward the establishment of a standard variety officially began with the foundation of the Deaf Sign Language Reform Committee in 1957 by the China Deaf and Blind People's Welfare Association, following the National Language Reform Committee's decision (in 1955) to standardize spoken and written Chinese," Jun wrote.

In 1959, the committee published the first manual phonetic alphabet of Modern Chinese, consisting of a total of 30 hand charts including graphic representations of the one-handed signs used for the representation of the 26 alphabet letters, plus four one-handed signs used for the representation of the four consonant combinations zh, ch, sh, and ng.

This was followed by a compilation in 1961 of a four-volume CSL lexicon entitled "Longyaren Tongyoung Shouyu Tu" (Standard Signs for the Deaf), which was officially published in 1963. In May 1987, the participants in the Third All-China Sign Language Working Meeting in Taian, east China's Shandong Province, agreed to use the title "Zhongguo Shouyu" for the new edition of the lexicon which was published in 1990, establishing the official name for the Chinese Sign Language.