The government will establish long-term plans to foster the advancement of sign language.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said on Monday that it will legislate by the end of the first half of the year subordinate laws of the sign language bill, which passed parliament late last year.

Under the law, sign language is considered to have equal status as the Korean language and recognized as the official language for those who are hard-of-hearing or can't physically speak.

The law also requires systematic research on the language and programs to distribute it.

Sign language programs have been implemented so far under the law on welfare for the disabled, but they were criticized for being insufficient.