The Phoney Sign Interpreter at Mandela's Funeral

Adak • Dec 14, 2013 8:06 am
South Africa didn't vet the sign interpreter for Nelson's Funeral. He's a complete fake - his sign language interpretation was meaningless, and he's unknown to the SA sign language community.

Just after a bit of that 15 minutes of fame, however he can get it, apparently.

Oddly, SA uses a totally different sign language than the rest of the world.
Clodfobble • Dec 14, 2013 8:14 am
That's not odd at all--most countries have their own sign language, even ones that speak the same verbal language.

Although the United Kingdom and the United States share English as the predominant oral language, British Sign Language is quite distinct from American Sign Language (ASL) - having only 31% signs identical, or 44% cognate.[9] BSL is also distinct from Irish Sign Language (ISL) (ISG in the ISO system) which is more closely related to French Sign Language (LSF) and ASL.
glatt • Dec 14, 2013 8:17 am
Latest I saw was that he wasn't so much a fraud as he was a schizophrenic suffering a panic attack up on the stage near all those armed cops, just trying to fake his way through the situation. Still not good security.
glatt • Dec 14, 2013 8:58 am
Wow! This morning's paper says that he has been charged in the past with murder, rape, kidnapping, theft, breaking and entering, and malicious damage to property. Those cases appear to have not gone to trial because he wasn't competent to stand trial.

This incident could have been much much worse. An actively hallucinating schizophrenic with a long history of violence was standing right next to multiple heads of state.
DanaC • Dec 14, 2013 9:32 am
If that was the plot of a movie you'd say it was far fetched nonsense.
Lamplighter • Dec 14, 2013 9:37 am
Oddly, SA uses 25 totally different sign languages than the rest of the world.


FIFY