The Directorate-General for European Cross-Cultural Communication (DGEC³) has today released the first official guidelines for hand gesture communication within the European Community. After eleven months of negotiation, European leaders, supported by forty-five highly skilled interpreters, have finally agreed upon eight official hand gestures for the most basic words and expressions.
Sceptics agree that this announcement has been conveniently scheduled as a "sweetner" ahead of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, at a time when the UK's teaching community are in uproar about the lack of focus on languages this summer. Professor Avril Fûle, Chairwoman of the Live Languages Association, wrote "This is just too little too late. It cannot make up for the fact that the English cannot and will not learn foreign languages in time for the huge influx of overseas visitors for the Olympics this summer. Reverting to wild gesticulation is embarrassing and never the answer."
There will be a preliminary trial period of sixth months, followed by quantitative and qualitative data analysis and collection of feedback from each EU member state's official DGEC³ member, after which a further four hundred and ninety two further gestures will be included.
