Archive · 2021 · From the print edition of Saturday 23 January 2021, Vol. 28, No. 8,724
FeaturesThe briefing's other face: Damira Mamyt
For a year she stood beside the Lieutenant Governor at every pandemic briefing, signing. Now IradOne's evening news has a signer too.
TALAS — For most of 2020, the Lieutenant Governor's daily briefing on the pandemic had two faces. One belonged to Aidar Maksat. The other, at the edge of the frame, belonged to Damira Mamyt, who signed every word of every briefing in Iradi Sign Language and became, without saying anything aloud, one of the best-known people in Irad.
Mrs. Mamyt, 50, is the hearing daughter of deaf parents and grew up signing in a flat in the Old Town. She has interpreted in the courts and at the Deaf Society of Irad since the 1990s. "In March they asked me to come for one day," she said. "I came for ten months." Strangers now stop her in the bazaar to sign hello.
Her work has had a lasting effect. From this month, IradOne's OneNews at Eight is signed every evening, the first regular signed programme on Iradi television. The Deaf Society, founded in 1993, says the visibility has helped its campaign for Iradi Sign Language to be recognised in the Language and Education Reform Act, which the Mejlis has yet to take up.
Asked whether she minded being recognised, Mrs. Mamyt smiled and signed something. Then she translated. "I said that I am famous for other people's words," she said. "That is the best kind of famous."