A method and apparatus for recognizing a sign language or a gesture by using a three-dimensional (3D) Euclidean distance matrix (EDM) are disclosed. The method includes a two-dimensional (2D) EDM generation step for generating a 2D EDM including information about distances between feature points of a body recognized in image information by a 2D EDM generator, a 3D EDM generation step for receiving the 2D EDM and generating a 3D EDM by using a first deep learning neural network trained with training data in which input data is a 2D EDM and correct answer data is a 3D EDM by a 3D EDM generator, and a recognition step for recognizing a sign language or a gesture based on the 3D EDM.