Plains Indian Sign Language

Plains Indian Sign Language, also known as Hand Talk, is an old way of communicating using hand signs. It was used by many Indigenous groups in North America, especially those living 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. Even today, it is still used in ceremonies and by some deaf people in Indigenous communities.

At one time, there were over 110,000 people who could use this sign language. This included groups such as the Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Sioux, Kiowa, and Arapaho. But as new schools were built that tried to take children away from their families, fewer and fewer people learned the language. Luckily, people are now working hard 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 that American Sign Language might have been influenced by Plains Indian Sign Language because of the way these two groups of people communicated with each other.

Etymology

Hand Talk is the name that Indigenous communities prefer for this special way of communicating with hands. It is a direct translation of what the language calls itself. Other names like Plains Sign Talk and Plains Indian Sign Language are also used, but Hand Talk is used 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 connected to ancient rock drawings called petroglyphs. Early records from Europeans who met Indigenous peoples in Texas and northern Mexico show that a fully developed sign language was already being used when they 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, with more signs being added each year.

Geography

Plains Indian Sign Language has been used by people speaking at least 37 different spoken languages across a huge 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 using pictures. This writing included petroglyphs, pictographs, and hieroglyphs, making it one of the few sign languages with a written form. These pictures told stories, marked places, and even acted like signs to show where water or safe paths were.

The way these pictures were made matched how the language was signed. For example, in some areas, the past was shown on the left and the future on the right, while in other places it was the opposite. This writing style mixed art and writing, creating symbols that could be read and understood by those who knew Hand Talk. Besides rock writings, people also wrote on materials like birch bark and buffalo hides, showing the many ways this language was used.

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

A phoneme cannot stand alone, but a small piece of meaning can be just one phoneme.

Dynamics

There are twelve dynamic phonemes that work like stress or tone in spoken languages. They 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 from something or how long a movement lasts.

Rounding or diphthongizing

This changes unrounded handshapes to rounded ones or creates a middle direction between two others.

Package-level dynamics

Hand-specifiers

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

Package-repeaters

A sign can be repeated exactly, progressively, or erratically.

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. However, 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.