Interpreter's performance draws widespread bemusement Out of hand: Thamsanqa Jantjie. Sign language received bad press when an interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial did not seem to know what he was talking about. Thamsanqa Jantjie translated key speakers' addresses, including those of US President Barack Obama and Mandela's grandchildren, into sign language as millions watched around the world. His apparent incompetence bemused, confused, shocked and then angered many as it dawned he was not only untrained but flapping around his arms inarticulately. Twitter came alive with complaints, including one from Wilma Newhoudt-Druchen, the first deaf woman to be elected to the South African parliament. The so-called interpreter on the stage with Cde Cyril is not signing. He's just making up. Get him out of TV sight," she tweeted. The bad signage quickly developed a life of its own. YouTube comedy site This is Genius created a spoof translation of Jantjie's work that quickly racked up more than 60,000 views; the US TV program Today apologised after running a video of the show's producer making meaningless signs as three anchors earnestly discussed the Mandela memorial "gate-crasher." Tracked down, Jantjiehe said he suffered from schizophrenia, had visions of angels while interpreting for global dignitaries and begged forgiveness, but like the "human chameleon" in Woody Allen's 1983 film Zelig, he had form for fitting in at major historical occasions. The South African Translators' Institute allowed it already had reservations about Jantjiehe, who has previously signed at the ruling African National Congress party's events, including its centenary anniversary last year. "We suspect there was something underhand about him," institute chairman Johan Blaauw told the domestic SAPA news agency. How else was he working on such an important occasion when he did not seem to know what he was doing? I'm afraid this thing has left the whole of South Africa with egg on its face. Sign language has been around as long as humans started communicating but it is not international. Each country typically has its own. Australians may have been able to detect something lacking with Jantjiehe's work as Auslan, the language of the Australian deaf community, is related to South African Sign Language. Sign language is a relatively low-profile human activity that only occasionally marches into public consciousness. The actress Louise Fletcher delivered part of her Oscar speech for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1976 in sign language as a tribute to her deaf-mute parents. The Australian comedian Adam Hills sometimes works with a sign language interpreter for the enhanced enjoyment of speakers and non-speakers alike: think of the visual gag of translating the word "wanker." In the film Four Weddings and a Funeral, the deaf brother of Hugh Grant's character uses sign language to harden his resolve to marry the woman he loves. Finally, you've got to marry the person you love with your whole heart. And by the way, your flies are undone. It may not too far of a stretch to credit Anna Bligh with turning sign language into a language of big occasions. In early 2011, as floods and then cyclone Yasi swept Queensland, the then premier created a new template for political communication as she seemed to stand alone against nature at press conferences, armed only with honesty, decisiveness, plain speech and a sign language interpreter at her side. Bligh failed to impress fellow Queenslanders at the next election, but the rest of Australia thought she was pretty fine and no politician or emergency services personnel has dared take strike during a bushfire, flood, plague or pestilence since without a sign interpreter at hand. The Mandela memorial showed how international the Bligh sign had become. Perhaps it was inevitable that it would turn into a bad sign.