Hand Discuss: The Native American Signal Language that Predated ASL 

All people have distinctive methods of speaking to navigate the world and interpret each day occasions. Though the spoken language is the commonest manner to take action, not all of us can use it. As well as, those that are Deaf or Onerous of listening to (D/HoH) typically discover oral language extraordinarily difficult to study and use. 

In consequence, D/HoH individuals could develop into lower off from mainstream society and threat being marginalized. This happens as a result of listening to individuals who talk by speech alone can’t work together successfully with the Deaf or Onerous of Listening to. And a scarcity of accessibility that helps interplay between the 2 populations can create a critical communication hole.

The Significance of Signal Language in Human Interplay

Luckily, the non-verbal medium of signal language exists to bridge this hole. Signal language is a type of visible communication that conveys info by actions of the palms, face, and physique. Greater than 135 totally different signal languages, together with American Signal Language (ASL), Australian Signal Language (Auslan), and British Signal Language (BSL) are used all over the world. 

Signal languages are sometimes the first mode of communication for the Deaf and Onerous-of-hearing group. However they provide many advantages to listening to individuals as nicely. Studying signal language will not be solely good for the mind but additionally improves communication expertise and cultural consciousness.

A serious objective of this text is to make clear the historical past and nature of a selected kind of signal language, Hand Discuss. Different names for Hand Discuss embody Native American Signal Language (NASL), Plains Indian Signal Language (PISL), and Plains Signal Discuss. One other purpose is to emphasize the worth of preserving Hand Discuss in order that future generations can recognize it as a refined manner of speaking and a fantastic cultural custom.

The Nature of Hand Discuss

Native American Signal Language, or Hand Discuss, was developed centuries earlier than American Signal Language got here into being. It possesses 4 important parameters: hand location, hand motion, hand form, and hand orientation:

• Hand Location: This pertains to the position of an indication in area. An indication’s that means will be modified if positioned in a unique space, equivalent to in entrance of the face slightly than in entrance of the chest.
• Hand Motion: This includes how the palms transfer when creating an indication. For example, in Hand Discuss, the indicators “afternoon” and “mid-day” are fashioned in the identical manner. The one distinction is that mid-day is stationary, and afternoon strikes from over the pinnacle to the facet of the pinnacle in an arching movement.
• Handshape: Every signal takes on a selected form within the hand, generally known as a handshape. The handshapes of indicators are important elements. For instance, the indicators for “sure” and “I do know” are the identical in all respects aside from the handshape; in “sure” the hand makes the attribute J form, and in “I-know” the hand makes the L form.
• Orientation: This refers to palm place and is clear within the Hand Discuss phrases “above” and “add.” Each indicators contain utilizing the left hand to type a base, from which the right-hand rises, and each have equivalent places, actions, and handshapes. Nevertheless, when signing “above,” the non-dominant hand is positioned palm down, and with “add” the non-dominant hand is palm up.

Different non-essential elements, equivalent to facial features, can also be concerned. However these perform as components that aren’t predetermined by grammar or alternative of vocabulary. 

The Historical past of Hand Discuss

Some consultants consider that early people used signal language lengthy earlier than spoken language developed. Equally, Native American tribes communicated utilizing Hand Discuss centuries earlier than Europeans got here to North America. 

Hand Discuss has a protracted and intriguing historical past. It’s one of many oldest, if not the oldest common signal language on the planet. Some historians declare that the language has been round for millennia. And moreover being an intertribal signal language utilized by many tribes, Hand Discuss additionally served as a communication software for Native Individuals who had been Deaf or Onerous-of-hearing. 

The primary contact data between Europeans and native teams in present-day Texas and Mexico describe a extremely developed indigenous signal language. It was already in use when European explorers first got here to the New World within the fifteenth century.

Presently and for hundreds of years earlier than, the indigenous individuals of North America lacked a unified tradition. As a substitute, a whole lot of various ethnicities and tribes, every with its personal language, social construction, and perception system had been unfold throughout the continent. When audio system of 1 language encountered these of one other by commerce, councils, or battle, the teams interacted by the lingua franca of Hand Discuss or Native American Signal Language. 

Hand Discuss is a Common Language

So, Hand Discuss is a common technique of communication that was not particularly created to be used by the Deaf and Onerous of listening to. As a substitute, it’s a pidgin signal language devised by listening to Native Individuals to facilitate cross-tribal interplay. Pidgin is a simplified language used to convey info between individuals who don’t share a typical language. Hand Discuss has by no means had native signers, however some Plains indigenous teams nonetheless use it at this time as a second language for storytelling.

Whereas many dialects of Hand Discuss exist, the language is actually common. And two-thirds of the tribes in the USA have used it for hundreds of years. This allowed an indigenous inhabitants that spoke greater than 500 totally different dialects to speak with each other.

Hand Discuss was employed primarily by the Plains Nations members for intertribal commerce. Nevertheless, it was widespread in what’s now central Canada, the central and western US, and northern Mexico. It additionally served as a medium for each day interactions amongst D/HoH individuals and for storytelling, speech-making, looking, and rituals. At one level, tens of 1000’s of indigenous individuals used Hand Discuss each day.

Hand Discuss’s Affect on American Signal Language

Nobody particular person can take credit score for creating American Signal Language. Its historical past reaches again to the early nineteenth century, when types of indicators developed in New England’s Deaf communities. And through the latter a part of that century, Hand Discuss influenced the formation of ASL, however historians largely ignore this reality.

Hand Discuss has regional variations that exist throughout North America. These embody a northeastern variant that ranges throughout the present-day New England, higher Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic states. Researchers consider this variant of Hand Discuss considerably impacted the event of American Signal Language. This affect happened within the nineteenth century by the signing of Native American youngsters who attended the American Faculty for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. An internet video titled “The Hidden Historical past of “Hand Discuss” presents convincing proof for Hand Discuss’s affect on ASL and US tradition.

The Decline of Hand Discuss

Nevertheless, regardless of its once-large variety of customers and highly effective influence on American Signal Language, Hand Discuss is in decline. This impact is as a result of widespread depopulation and Americanization of Indigenous North Individuals over the previous 200 years. For instance, in 1885, roughly 110,000 Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Sioux, Kiowa, Arapaho, and different tribal peoples used Native American Signal Language or Hand Discuss. However by the Nineteen Sixties, solely a fraction of this quantity remained. And within the twenty first century, few lively Hand Discuss customers exist. 

Like the opposite indigenous languages of North America, Native American Signal Language is endangered. However whereas the variety of fluent signers could also be small, the language remains to be getting used to various levels by some members of Siouan and Algonquian tribes. 

The Significance of Learning and Preserving Hand Discuss

As well as, activists like Deaf Cherokee researcher Dr. Melanie McKay-Cody of Arizona are working diligently to maintain North American Hand Discuss alive. Dr. McKay-Cody works with tribal teams to assist them protect their signed languages. She additionally advocates for Hand Discuss to be integrated into the mainstream schooling of Deaf and Onerous of listening to college students. It’s hoped that such efforts will assist Hand Discuss to stay on. On this manner, forthcoming generations can proceed to make use of and benefit from the language and recognize the wealthy cultural custom from which it got here.