Every September 23, the world celebrates the International Day of Sign Languages—a day to recognize the linguistic identity, diversity, culture, and human rights of Deaf people and sign language users around the world.
For organizations that create video and digital media, it is also an opportunity to ask an important question:
Is the information we create truly accessible to everyone who needs it?
At Amara.org, we believe accessibility is not an optional feature added at the end of the content-creation process. As a nonprofit focused on making audiovisual content more accessible, we see captions, subtitles, transcription, and translation as practical tools for expanding access to information, education, culture, and ideas.
And while captions do not replace sign languages or qualified sign language interpretation, they are an important part of a broader accessible-media ecosystem.
What is International Day of Sign Languages?
The International Day of Sign Languages is observed every year on September 23. Established by the United Nations, the day raises awareness of the importance of sign languages and recognizes the linguistic and cultural identity of Deaf people.
There are hundreds of sign languages used by Deaf communities around the world. Sign languages are complete, natural languages with their own linguistic structures—they are not simply signed versions of spoken languages.
For many Deaf people, sign language is their first or preferred language and an essential part of their identity and community.
Celebrating International Day of Sign Languages therefore means recognizing something fundamental:
Language access is human rights access.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognizes the importance of accessible communication and information, including sign languages. It also calls for mass media and internet-based information providers to make their services accessible to people with disabilities.
That principle has become increasingly important as more of our education, news, entertainment, professional communication, and public information moves online.
Sign language and captions: Different forms of access
When talking about Deaf accessibility, it is important not to treat sign language and captions as interchangeable.
Sign language can be a person’s primary language and an important part of Deaf culture and identity. Sign language interpretation and accessible content in sign languages are therefore essential forms of language access.
Captions provide another form of access.
For Deaf and hard-of-hearing people who use written language, captions can provide access to the spoken dialogue and other important audio information in audiovisual content.
For content creators, this means accessibility may involve multiple solutions depending on the audience and context—including sign language interpretation, captions, SDH captions, transcripts, translated subtitles, or combinations of these approaches.
The goal is not to find one accessibility solution for everyone.
The goal is to remove barriers to accessing information.
Why captions matter for Deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences
Captions can make video content significantly more accessible by providing a written representation of spoken dialogue.
But effective accessibility requires more than simply generating a transcript and displaying it on screen.
What are SDH captions?
SDH, or Subtitles for Deaf and Hard of Hearing, are designed to provide access to dialogue as well as relevant information contained in the audio.
Depending on the content, SDH captions can identify:
- Who is speaking
- Important sound effects
- Music and lyrics
- Background noises
- Changes in speakers
- Other meaningful audio information
For example, a caption such as:
[door slams]
communicates information that would otherwise be conveyed through sound.
Similarly, identifying a speaker can make a conversation between several people easier to follow.
These details can transform captions from a basic transcript into a more complete representation of the audiovisual experience.
Accessible video is about more than putting text on a screen
Automated speech recognition has made it easier than ever to generate captions quickly.
That is an important development. Technology can dramatically reduce the time and cost involved in creating accessible media.
But speed and accessibility are not always the same thing.
A caption can contain the right words and still create an accessibility barrier if it:
- Misidentifies a speaker
- Misspells names or technical terminology
- Omits important dialogue
- Misses meaningful sound information
- Contains timing or synchronization problems
- Changes the meaning of what someone said
- Produces errors that make the content difficult to understand
This becomes particularly important for specialized content.
Consider a medical training video, university lecture, legal information session, government announcement, documentary, or technical presentation.
In these contexts, accuracy is part of accessibility.
Why human-in-the-loop captioning matters
AI and automated captioning tools can be valuable parts of a modern accessibility workflow.
But for organizations where accuracy, context, and meaning matter, a human-in-the-loop approach can add an important layer of quality assurance.
Professional captioners and language specialists can review automated output and correct issues that technology may not recognize.
They can consider context, terminology, speaker changes, punctuation, timing, cultural references, and other elements that affect how a person experiences the content.
This is especially important when captions will subsequently be translated into other languages.
A small error in the original caption can become a much larger problem when that text becomes the source for multilingual subtitles.
Better captions create a better foundation for multilingual accessibility.
From captions to multilingual accessibility
Accessibility does not stop at the original language.
A video may be captioned in English and then translated into Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, or other languages to reach a global audience.
For international organizations, educators, nonprofits, media companies, and content creators, multilingual subtitles can help make information available to people who would otherwise encounter both a language barrier and an accessibility barrier.
This is where captioning, subtitling, translation, and accessibility intersect.
A single video can become:
Original video → Accurate captions → SDH captions → Translated subtitles → Multilingual access
Each step can expand the number of people who can participate in the conversation.
Accessibility is connected to the right to information
Why does this matter?
Because audiovisual content increasingly contains information that people need to participate in society.
People watch videos to:
- Learn
- Work
- Study
- Access healthcare information
- Understand public services
- Follow the news
- Participate in events
- Connect with communities
- Experience films and entertainment
- Discover new ideas and cultures
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the right to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media.
When essential information is communicated through video without accessibility, some audiences may face barriers to receiving that information.
That is why we believe captions should not be treated simply as a “nice to have.”
Accessible media is part of making information available to more people.
Content creators can make accessibility part of the process
You do not need to be a major media company to make your content more accessible.
Whether you create:
- Online courses
- Webinars
- Podcasts with video
- Interviews
- Training videos
- Documentaries
- Marketing videos
- YouTube content
- Social media videos
- Corporate communications
- Educational resources
you can build accessibility into your workflow from the beginning.
Start with accurate captions.
Then consider whether your audience would benefit from SDH captions, transcripts, translated subtitles, or sign language interpretation.
And when accuracy matters, consider working with professional captioners and language specialists who can review and refine your content.
Accessibility works best when people are part of the process
Technology can help us make more content accessible, but accessibility is ultimately about people.
That means understanding the needs of the communities who will use the content and, whenever possible, involving people with lived experience in accessibility decisions.
For Deaf audiences, this can mean consulting Deaf people and qualified sign language professionals when determining appropriate accessibility strategies.
There is no single solution that meets every person’s communication needs.
Accessible content begins with listening to the people you want to reach.
Amara.org: Making audiovisual content more accessible
At Amara.org, accessibility is at the core of our mission.
As a nonprofit organization, we work to make audiovisual content more accessible through captioning, transcription, subtitling, and translation.
We believe technology can help organizations scale accessibility—but that human expertise remains essential when quality, context, and meaning matter.
Our professional captioning services can help organizations create accurate captions and subtitles for their audiovisual content, with workflows that can incorporate human expertise and review.
Whether you need captions for a single video or are developing an ongoing multilingual accessibility workflow, Amara can help you turn audiovisual content into content that more people can actually access and understand.
Make your videos more accessible
Don’t wait until accessibility becomes an afterthought. Build it into your content workflow from the beginning.
Explore Amara’s professional captioning and subtitling services to learn how accurate, professionally reviewed captions can help you reach Deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences and make your content more accessible.
Because captions are more than text on a screen.
They are a pathway to information, participation, and connection.
Celebrate International Day of Sign Languages
This September 23, celebrate sign languages and the Deaf communities who use them.
- Recognize linguistic diversity.
- Support accessible communication.
- Caption your videos.
- Make your information available to more people.
Accessibility isn’t a feature. It’s access.
If you have audiovisual content that you want to share and make accessible to an audience worldwide, email us at client-services@amara.org, and our team will be ready to help you find the best captioning and subtitling services for your needs.
