roughbarked said:
roughbarked said:
dv said:This isn’t a brainteaser. It’s a legit question.
https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/2018-census-totals-by-topic-national-highlights-updated/
https://deafconnect.org.au/our-news/auslan-user-statistics-2021-census#:~:text=Census%20data%20reveals%20more%20than,were%20released%20%E2%80%93%2028%20June%202022.
In the reading of these you are perhaps comparing 23,000 with a little over 16,000?
Or is there some other comparison that you are using?
Sleep must have overtaken dv.
For a start: Implantation of cochlear implants for deaf children is relatively high in Australia compared to the rest of the world, and around 80% of significantly deaf or hard of hearing children receive one. In 2021 census there were 16,242 who are Auslan users.
However, for the first time, the 2021 National Census included Auslan as a prompt when asking what language was used at home, following unsuccessful attempts to have it included in previous Censuses.
The question now asks ‘Does (person) use a language other than English at home? The prompt question in the ‘other language’ will state, “If other, for example, Auslan, please write here’.
Previously, Auslan user data was captured only when respondents actively listed ‘Other’ as a language option and added ‘Auslan’ as their first language in an unprompted response, however this qualitive data was not accurate due to many factors, including that the public were largely unaware that this was an option.
There are no definitive statistics for how many people belong to the Deaf community in Australia.
Recent estimates have ranged from Hyde and Power (1991) who calculated that there were 15,400 Deaf users of sign language, and possibly another 15,000 hearing users; to Johnston (2004) who estimated that there were 6,500 Deaf Auslan users. Johnston ‘s calculations focused on native signers (those who have signed from birth or early childhood), however Deaf Australia perceives that the community of Auslan users is much larger than those who are native signers, since so many learn the language as teenagers or young adults.
Until a more definitive answer can be given, Deaf Australia continues to rely on the Hyde and Power study as the most reliable indicator of the size of the Australian Deaf community.
In the 2018 NZ census, about 23,000 people in New Zealand had some knowledge of NZSL. An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 of these are deaf people for whom it is their main language.