Plains Indian Sign Language

Plains Indian Sign Language, also called Hand Talk, is an old way to talk using hand signs. Many Indigenous groups in North America used it. These groups lived on the Great Plains, in the Northeast Woodlands, and in the Great Basin. People used this sign language for important things like trading, making peace, and sharing stories. Today, it is still used in ceremonies and by some deaf people in Indigenous communities.

Once, over 110,000 people could use this sign language. This included groups such as the Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Sioux, Kiowa, and Arapaho. But as new schools were built, fewer people learned the language. Now, people are working to keep it alive, and it is being used more today.

Some deaf Indigenous children learn another sign language called American Sign Language at school, but they already know Plains Indian Sign Language from their families. Scientists think American Sign Language might have been influenced by Plains Indian Sign Language because of how these groups talked to each other.

Etymology

Hand Talk is the name that Indigenous communities prefer for this special way of communicating with hands. It means the same thing as the language calls itself. Other names like Plains Sign Talk and Plains Indian Sign Language are also used, but Hand Talk is known in many places beyond the Great Plains, including the Northeast Woodlands and the Great Basin.

Each Indigenous nation has its own word for Hand Talk in their own language. For example:

• In Algonquian languages, the Arapaho call it Bee3osohoot or Bee3sohoet, the Blackfoot call it A'psstówahsin, and the Cheyenne call it Évȯhónestȯtse.
• In Caddoan languages, the Pawnee call it Ikstaaruhuraawaahʾuʾ.
• In Iroquoian languages, the Seneca call it Gayeöni:h.
• In Na-Dene languages, the Navajo call it Yideez.
• In Siouan languages, the Crow call it Baapáattuua, the Dakota call it Wikiyutapi, the Ho-Chunk call it Nąąp hoit’e, the Lakota call it Wíyutȟapi, the Nakoda call it Wíyutabi, and the Stoney call it Wowîhâ Îabi.
• In Uto-Aztecan languages, the Comanche call it Mootekwaʔpʉ̠ or Moʔotekwapʉ̠, and the Ute call it Wanawmanik.

History

Hand Talk, also known as Plains Indian Sign Language, has a long history. It may be connected to ancient rock drawings called petroglyphs. Early records from Europeans show that Indigenous peoples in Texas and northern Mexico used a fully developed sign language when Europeans arrived. These records include stories from travelers in 1527 and 1541.

It is believed that signing might have started in the southern parts of North America, maybe in northern Mexico or Texas, and later spread to the Plains. There are also sign languages used by the Maya people, but it is not clear how they are related to Hand Talk. In the Northwest, there is a sign language called Plateau Sign Language, used by local nations, which may be related to Hand Talk. Recently, the Oneida Nation has started efforts to bring back their sign language, and the Oneida Sign Language Project began in 2016.

Geography

Plains Indian Sign Language has been used by people who speak at least 37 different spoken languages across a very large area of over 2.6 million square kilometres (1 million square miles). It was especially well-developed among the Crow, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa, and it is still strong among these groups today.

This sign language was used by many different groups, including the Algonquian, Athabaskan, Caddoan, Coahuiltecan, Iroquoian, Numic, Plateau Penutian, Piman, Puebloan, Salishan, Siouan, Yuman, and others. A researcher named Melanie R. McKay-Cody suggests that Plains Indian Sign Language is actually a family of related sign languages that stretch beyond the Great Plains. She describes regional versions such as Northeast Hand Talk, Plains Sign Talk, Great Basin Sign Language, and Southwest Hand Talk. She also mentions a West Coast language used by the Chumash and suggests a possible link to Inuit Sign Language. Each of these languages can have its own dialects used by specific groups.

Writing

Hand Talk, a sign language used by many Indigenous nations, had a special way of writing with pictures. This writing used petroglyphs, pictographs, and hieroglyphs. These pictures told stories and marked special places.

The pictures were made to match how the language was signed. People used materials like birch bark and buffalo hides to write with this language.

Phonology

See also: American Sign Language phonology

Garrick Mallery wrote about hand shapes in 1880. Later, La Mont West, guided by Alfred Kroeber and Charles F. Voegelin, studied how Plains Sign Language works. West described the language using eighty-two small parts called kinemes. He looked at how signs are built from simple pieces, like how words are built from letters.

West found that signs include handshapes, directions, referents, motions, and dynamics. Four of these are like parts found in many sign languages: handshape, direction the hand faces, where the sign is made, and how it moves. The fifth part, dynamics, is special to his work.

• Direction – there are eight ways a sign can point or face.
• Handshape – there are nine basic shapes that can change.
• Referent – forty ways to show parts of the body or things around you.
• Motion-patterns – four ways a movement can look.

A small piece of meaning can be just one part.

Dynamics

There are twelve parts that change how a sign is made, like making a movement stronger or slower.

Phoneme-level dynamics

Motion dynamic

Normally, a movement happens at the elbow. If it happens at the wrist, it is called a motion dynamic.

Stress

There are two kinds of stress, which make a movement strong and fast or weak and slow.

Extent

Long and short extents change how far a hand is held or how long a movement lasts.

Rounding or diphthongizing

This changes handshapes to rounded ones or creates a middle direction.

Package-level dynamics

Hand-specifiers

A sign can be made with one hand or both hands.

Package-repeaters

A sign can be repeated in different ways.

Phonotactics

The smallest part of a sign is called a package. It must have one main part: a handshape and a direction.

There are few rules about mixing different parts within a package. Some parts, like handshapes, rarely combine with each other.

Phonological processes

Most signs use one hand. When two hands are used, they move together in specific ways.

Prosody

Users of Plains Sign Language use clear breaks between parts of a sentence. These breaks include crossing the hands over the stomach, moving hands partway toward this position, or a small pause. These breaks help show where sentences and ideas begin and end.