Plains Indian Sign Language

A 1900 newspaper illustration claiming to showcase several of the signs of Plains Indian Sign Language.

Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL), also known as Plains Sign Talk,^[5] Plains Sign Language and First Nation Sign Language,^[1] is a trade language (or international auxiliary language), formerly trade pidgin, that was once the lingua franca across central Canada, central and western United States and northern Mexico, used among the various Plains Nations. It was also used for story-telling, oratory, various ceremonies, and by deaf people for ordinary daily use.^[6] It is falsely believed to be a manually coded language or languages, however there is not substantive evidence establishing a connection between any spoken language and Plains Sign Talk.

The name 'Plains Sign Talk' is preferred in Canada, with 'Indian' being considered pejorative by many. Hence, publications and reports on the language vary in naming conventions according to origin.

History

Plains Sign Talk's antecedents, if any, are unknown, due to lack of written records. But, the earliest records of contact between Europeans and Indigenous peoples of the Gulf Coast region in what is now Texas and northern Mexico note a fully formed sign language already in use by the time of the Europeans' arrival there.^[7] These records include the accounts of Cabeza de Vaca in 1527 and Coronado in 1541.

As a result of several factors, including the massive depopulation and the Americanization of Indigenous North Americans, the number of Plains Sign Talk speakers declined from European arrival onward. In 1885, it was estimated that there were over 110,000 "sign-talking Indians", including Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Sioux, Kiowa and Arapaho.^[8] By the 1960s, there remained a "very small percentage of this number".^[8] There are few Plains Sign Talk speakers today in the 21st century.^[9]

William Philo Clark, who served in the United States Army on the northern plains during the Indian Wars, was the author of The Indian Sign Language, first published in 1885. The Indian Sign Language with Brief Explanatory Notes of the Gestures Taught Deaf-Mutes in Our Institutions and a Description of Some of the Peculiar Laws, Customs, Myths, Superstitions, Ways of Living, Codes of Peace and War Signs is a comprehensive lexicon of signs, with accompanying insights into indigenous cultures and histories. It remains in print.

Geography

Sign language use has been documented across speakers of at least 37 spoken languages in twelve families,^[10] spread across an area of over 2.6 million square kilometres (1 million square miles).^[6][11] In recent history, it was highly developed among the Crow, Cheyenne, Arapaho and Kiowa, among others, and remains strong among the Crow, Cheyenne and Arapaho.

Signing may have started in the south, perhaps in northern Mexico or Texas, and only spread into the plains in recent times, though this suspicion may be an artifact of European observation. Plains Sign Talk spread to the Sauk, Fox, Potawatomi, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Caddo after their removal to Oklahoma. Via the Crow, it replaced the divergent Plateau Sign Language among the eastern nations that used it, the Coeur d'Alene, Sanpoil, Okanagan, Thompson, Lakes, Shuswap, and Coleville in British Columbia, with western nations shifting instead to Chinook Jargon.

The various nations with attested use, divided by language family, are:

• Piman: Pima, Papago, and continuing into northern Mexico
• isolates of the Texas coast: Coahuilteco, Tonkawa, Karankawa, Atakapa
• Yuman: Maricopa
• Numic: Paiute, Ute, Comanche, Shoshone
• Tanoan: Kiowa, Taos
• Zuni Pueblo
• Caddoan: Wichita, Pawnee, Arikara
• Athabaskan: Apache (Mescalero, Lipan, Jicarilla, and Kiowa Apache), Navajo, Sarcee, Beaver
• Algonquian: Blackfoot, Gros Ventre, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Cree, Ojibwa
• Kutenai
• Siouan: Mandan, Crow, Hidatsa, Omaha, Osage, Assinibion, Ponca, Oto, Sioux (Teton, Yankton, Yanktonai, Santee)
• Sahaptian: Nez Perce, Sahaptin, Umatilla, Palus
• Cayuse
• Salish: Kalispel, Coeur d'Alene, Flathead, Spokane, Sanpoil (shifted from the distinct Plateau Sign Language)

A distinct form is also reported from the Wyandot of Ohio.

It is known that Navajo has a comparably sizeable population of individuals who can speak the Navajo dialect of Plains Sign Talk. There is also an unrelated sign language, Navajo Family Sign, in a clan of Navajos that has several deaf members.^[12][14]

There exists a variety of Plains Sign Talk within the Blackfoot Confederacy. Little is known about the language beyond that it is used by Deaf community members, as well as by the community at large, to pass on "oral" traditions and stories.^[13]

Phonology

There are four basic parameters of Plains Sign Talk: the location of the hand, its movement, shape, and orientation:^[15]

• Location—this involves the spatial placement of a sign.^[16] Signs may change meaning when placed in a different location, for example, in front of the face as opposed to in front of the torso.^[17]
• Movement—this involves, as implied, the way the hands move when forming the sign.^[16] For example, in Plains Sign Talk, the signs AFTERNOON and MID-DAY form minimal pairs as they are both formed exactly the same, the only difference being that MID-DAY is stationary and AFTERNOON moves from above the head to the side in an arching motion.^[11][18]
• Handshape—as implied, each sign takes on a certain shape in the hand, called a handshape. The handshapes of signs are a very key parameter. For example, the signs YES and I-KNOW are the same in all parameters except for the handshape; in YES the hand makes the Plains Sign Talk J shape, and in I-KNOW the hand takes the L shape.^[11]
• Orientation—this refers to the orientation of the palm.^[16] This is clearly seen in the Plains Sign Talk words ABOVE and ADD. Both involve having the left hand act as a base from which the right hand rises, and both have the same location, movement, and handshapes; however, in ABOVE, the non-dominant hand is palm down, and in ADD the non-dominant hand is palm up.^[18]

There may be other parameters, such as facial features. However, these function like suprasegmentals, and the four parameters listed above are the crucial ones.^[16]

Although the parameters of sign are listed separately below, in actuality they co-occur with the other parameters to make a single sign.^[16] It is not clear how many of the differences were distinctive (phonemic).

Handshape

The Bureau of American Ethnology published a glossary of Plains Sign Talk words that illustrate the handshapes involved.^[19] They assigned them alphabetic letters.

• Fist, thumb in front of fingers (A or B)
• Fist, thumb at side of fingers (C)
• Fingers clenched, thumb touching middle of index finger (D)
• Fingers hooked, thumb touching back tip of index finger (E)
• Fingers hooked, thumb at side of fingers (F)
• Fingers hooked, thumb touching tips of fingers (G)
• Fingers slightly bent, thumb at side tip of index finger (H)
• Fist, except index finger forming hook with thumb holding tip of index finger (I)
• Fist, except index finger fully extended (J, K, or M)
• Fist, except index finger and thumb extended, thumb bends at last joint to form 90 degree angle with index finger (L)
• Fist except index and middle fingers fully extended (N)
• Thumb, index, and middle finger pointing upward and separated, ring finger and pinky curved horizontally (O)
• All fingers and thumb pointing upward and separated, palm cupped (P and Q)
• All fingers and thumb fully extended and separated (R)
• All fingers and thumb fully extended and held together (S and T)
• Fingers gathered to a point, palm cupped, with thumb in the middle (U)
• Fingers slightly bent, thumb at side of index finger (V)
• All fingers and thumb extended, relaxed (Y)

Location

Plains Sign Talk uses the following locations. The various neutral spaces are the most common places for signs to occur.^[17]

Orientation

These are the directions towards which the palm can face.^[17]

• Up
• Down
• Non-dominant side
• Dominant side
• Toward signer
• Away from signer

Movement

The movements below are found in Plains Sign Talk. They may be repeated in certain situations.^[17]

See also

• Plateau Sign Language

References

• Bergmann, Anouschka; Kathleen Currie Hall; Sharon Miriam Ross. "Language Files". USA. Ohio State University, 2007.
• Bureau of American ethnology. "Annual report of the Bureau of American ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian institution". Washington, DC. Government printing office, 1881.
• Cody, Iron Eyes. "Indian Talk". CA. Naturegraph Publishers, Inc, 1970.
• Davis, Jeffrey E. "Hand Talk". USA. Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• Tomkins, William. "Indian Sign Language". Toronto, Ontario. Dover Publications, Inc, 1969

Further reading

• Newell, Leonard E. (1981). A stratificational description of Plains Indian Sign Language. Forum Linguisticum 5: 189-212.
• "Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes," First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-1880, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 263-552
• Clark, William Philo. 1885. The Indian Sign Language

External links

• "PISL"
• "Indian" Sign Language Dictionary
• "Letter Signs in Plains Indian Sign Language, Image in Harper's Magazine (March 1880)"