Polish Sign Language (polski język migowy – PJM) is a visual-spatial language used in daily communication by the Deaf community in Poland. The capital letter used in the word Deaf is intended to indicate that this community is viewed here as a linguistic minority. Like other natural sign languages of the Deaf in Europe, Polish Sign Language (PJM) is part of Europe’s linguistic and cultural heritage, as such deserves to be protected. 

PJM began to develop around 1817, when the first school for deaf children was founded in Warsaw. Today its number of users is estimated to be in the tens of thousands. Although PJM grammar and lexicon are radically different from the Polish language, for many decades PJM was deprived of recognition as a fully-fledged natural language. In the 21st century, however, this approach began to change, as evidenced by Poland’s adoption in 2011 of the Act on Sign Language and Other Means of Communication, which among other measures guarantees the Deaf community new rights in the field of translation services when dealing with public administration.