When Jin Daming moved from northern China to Shanghai, hoping to start a career as a pastry chef, he was prepared for a fast-paced city — but he didn’t expect the city’s sign language to feel so alien.

The 25-year-old, who lost his hearing at age 10, quickly realized that the signs he had relied on for years differed significantly in the southern city. “I had difficulties in understanding what people were signing,” Jin told Sixth Tone. “There are several different dialect variants, even for the most common words like ‘Shanghai.’”

Jin’s experience underscores an issue affecting nearly 28 million deaf individuals across China: stark regional differences in sign language.

With variations as distinct as dialects in spoken Chinese, sign language users often face communication gaps within their own community. While the government has been working to standardize Chinese Sign Language (CSL) for decades, early efforts resulted in systems that were difficult to learn and less intuitive than the natural signs developed organically by the Deaf community.

Though recent changes have made standardized signs more accessible, many deaf individuals remain wary of adopting them, preferring the familiar local signs they’ve used for years.

Language divides — especially between northern and southern regions — have made it challenging for a unified system to take hold, even as many deaf people hope for a more widely accepted national system.

China’s large size, coupled with a history of sign language use dating back at least 1,500 years, have made China’s sign languages especially fragmented. To simplify things, linguists often divide CSL into two varieties.

The northern variety, centered in Beijing, is more influenced by sounds from spoken Chinese, while the southern variant, from regions surrounding Shanghai, incorporates more visually-derived signs.

For instance, the Chinese word “积极” (jījí), meaning “active” or “enthusiastic,” is represented in Beijing sign language by the sign for “chicken,” as the two words sound similar in standard spoken Chinese. By contrast, Shanghai sign language expresses the concept as “warmhearted,” signed as two flames in front of the chest to convey eagerness.

Another difference is that sign language users from the North tend to mouth out sentences when signing, but that’s less common in the South.

Just as with spoken Chinese, the government has attempted to standardize CSL by creating an official dialect. The standard sign language is used for TV broadcasts and public events, as well as in schools for disabled people.

The official effort got underway in the late 1950s, and by the early 2000s several books for use nationwide had been published. But the effort wasn’t always welcomed by the Deaf community.

Standardized signs were often unwieldy compared with those developed by deaf people over time, commonly referred to in China as “natural sign language.”

For example, early official sign languages were often based on fingerspelling using pinyin, the official system of writing Chinese using the Latin alphabet.

“Natural signing is more convenient for me,” said Lin Lin, a deaf sign language user. “If I don’t understand someone’s sign, I ask them what it means, or we can even type out what we’re trying to say,” Lin said.

Liu Hui, 26, told Sixth Tone that among those who reside in their home regions, there’s little need to learn standard CSL. “If you’ve lived in the same place for years, there aren’t many situations where it’s required,” she explained. “Unless it’s absolutely needed, I wouldn’t choose to learn it,” she added.

Given the ease and familiarity of local signs, many in the Deaf community don’t feel an urgent need for a national standard. A 2011 survey found that about 63% of deaf individuals expressed support for a standardized sign language, while 80% of service providers — such as teachers and interpreters — felt it was necessary.

But for Tan Ting, China’s first deaf lawyer, the patchwork of regional signs isn’t just an inconvenience — it’s a barrier. Representing deaf clients in complex legal cases, she finds that inconsistent signs can lead to misunderstandings that jeopardize crucial details. “Clear communication is the foundation of good legal support,” she says, adding that she believes a standardized system is essential.

The combination of limited demand for a national standard among deaf people, and flaws in design and teaching, mean that fewer than 30% of Chinese deaf people surveyed in 2021 said they could understand “most or all” sign language translations of TV news. Nearly 40% indicated they could understand only a small amount, or none at all.

Some in China’s Deaf community argue that basing sign languages on spoken or written language overlooks the unique structure of signing. Sign language has its own logic and expressiveness — for example, a phrase like “Can I help you?” can be conveyed in a single sign rather than a series of word-by-word signs. Rather than punctuation, signers use facial expressions or body language to convey questions or emphasis.

A step towards a more user-friendly standard came in 2018, when China’s government published the National List of Common Words for Universal Sign Language, including more than 5,000 standard signs, replacing many that were previously based on the appearance of Chinese characters, or on fingerspelling. The list has since been expanded to include more than 8,000 signs.

New terms are incorporated through a process in which popular words and expressions relevant to the Deaf community are collected and trialed at 12 sign language information centers across the country. Only signs that gain broad acceptance are added to the dictionary, which leads to delays in updates that can lag behind natural use.

Gu Dingqian, a professor at Beijing Normal University and director at the National Sign Language and Braille Research Center, who helped draft several versions of standard sign language, said there had been a significant shift in their approach away from representing spoken and written Chinese toward capturing variations in body movements and facial expressions in sign language.

For example, in the 2018 list, the direction of the palm during the sign for “help” indicates the recipient of the help. If the palm faces others with a questioning expression, it shows the speaker is offering help.

China’s government views a standardized CSL as part of efforts to create a sense of national identity among the Chinese Deaf population, and has invested in a range of promotional events to popularize the 2018 guidelines.

“Although there may still be some shortcomings or disagreements in certain regions regarding specific signs, the overall attitude is one of acceptance,” Gu said.

Gu added that resistance to the latest standard has come from some deaf school teachers who believe a sign language that respects the rules of natural sign language in teaching will hinder the learning of written Chinese.

Take the concept of “poverty alleviation,” for example. In spoken and written Chinese, the concept is expressed by combining the words or characters for “alleviating” and “poverty,” with the action going before the noun. Meanwhile, the 2018 standard sign language respects the common rule in natural signing: that actions follow nouns.

“In instances like this, it’s not only about educating the students but also getting the teachers to change their mindset,” said Gu.

Jin, the pastry chef, said the popularity of social media has helped spread standard signs, which he has learned from Chinese short video platforms Kuaishou and Douyin.

For the moment, Jin switches between natural and standard CSL. “I mostly rely on natural sign language, but I’ll use standard sign language when meeting new friends in different regions,” he said.

Another element adding to the debate about standard signs is the spread of “deaf pride” in China, with people celebrating being deaf as a unique cultural and linguistic identity, rather than a disability.

That trend was symbolized by the campaign to remove the term “deaf-mute,” which was previously used to denote any individual with hearing difficulties.

Deaf individuals felt the term “deaf-mute” misrepresented them, as most people with hearing loss can speak. China’s state-backed Disabled Persons’ Federation in 2023 issued guidelines on how to address the group, including specification that “deaf-mute” no longer be used as a combined term.

Younger deaf people have a less deferential attitude toward standard CSL and more pride in local dialects, said Kou Chenzhu, a sign language interpreter with over a decade of experience.

The legacy of previous versions of standard CSL, seen as prioritizing spoken and written Chinese, continue to hinder promotion of general sign language despite improvements in the most recent standard, Kou added.

“Due to the previous negative impressions about standardized sign language, many deaf people habitually view general sign language with skepticism,” Kou said. “It may take more time and effort to change the stereotype.”

Additional reporting: Li Miaoran; editor: Tom Hancock.