Deaf Lebanese

Lebanon's Deaf are the people who use Lebanese Sign Language and take part in Deaf life: schools for the deaf, clubs and associations. They come from every sect and region of the country. Lebanese Sign Language is the Lebanese variety of the Levantine Arabic Sign Language family shared with Syria, Jordan and Palestine (it has no ISO code of its own; the Jordanian code is used for the family). There is no single standard: signs differ by region, by the school a person attended and by the community they grew up in, and the language is poorly documented, with no comprehensive dictionary. It grew in the schools for the deaf founded from 1957, among them the Father Andeweg Institute for the Deaf in Beirut, founded by a Dutch missionary and supported by the Methodist Church in Ireland, the Lebanese School for the Blind and the Deaf in Baabda, and the Deaf-led Learning Center for the Deaf (2001-2002). Many deaf Lebanese grow up in hearing families who do not sign; cousin marriage raises the rate of inherited deafness in some regions, and stigma leads some families to hide deaf members. People who lose their hearing later in life and keep using spoken Arabic belong to their own peoples.

Deaf social life gathers around the deaf schools, their alumni and sports clubs, the Lebanese Federation of the Deaf (founded 2016) and WhatsApp and Facebook groups where members share signed videos. Deaf Lebanese, like hearing Lebanese, belong to a sect by birth, which decides their marriage, inheritance and school; deaf-deaf marriages across sects face the same legal obstacles as for hearing people (no civil marriage in Lebanon). Many deaf adults left school early, read written Arabic poorly and work in crafts, hairdressing, carpentry, sewing, bakeries and data entry; unemployment is high. Interpreters are few, and in a 2026 interview an interpreter said people with disabilities are still excluded by Lebanon's institutions.

Deaf Lebanese take the religion of their families, but they have almost no access to its teaching: Friday sermons, Shia majalis, church liturgies and Druze gatherings are spoken, and almost none are interpreted into sign. Many deaf Muslims pray and fast by imitation without understanding the words, and deaf Christians attend weddings and funerals without following the liturgy. A few Christian and Muslim schools for the deaf teach religion in sign. Signed religious content reaches some through video from Jordan and the Gulf.

No Bible translation or Deaf church in Lebanese Sign Language is known. The Jesus Film Project has released Magdalena, a film of the life of Jesus seen through the eyes of Mary Magdalene, in Lebanese Sign Language; the JESUS film, New Testament passages and Bible stories exist in the closely related Jordanian Sign Language, which most Lebanese signers can largely follow. The Father Andeweg Institute, a Christian school that admits deaf children of all faiths, most of them Muslim, has worked in Beirut since 1957. The best-placed workers would be deaf Lebanese believers trained to lead in sign, of whom very few are known.