Not to be confused with Indo-Pakistani Sign Language.
Plains Indian Sign Language
Hand Talk Plains Sign Language First Nation Sign Language[1]
Langue des signes des Indiens des Plaines Langue des signes des autochtones des Plaines[2][3] (in French Canada) Lenguaje de signos Indio de las Llanuras (in Mexico)
Native to
Canada, Mexico, USA
Region
Central Canada and United States including the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains region; northern Mexico
Ethnicity
Various Plains Indians
Native speakers
Unknown
Language family
Isolate, formerly a trade pidgin
Dialects
Navajo Sign Language
Blackfoot Sign Language
Cree Sign Language
Ojibwa Sign Language
Writing system
None; illustrations of signs
Official status
Official language in
none
Recognised minority language in
Recognised as official in courts, education and legislative assembly of Ontario.[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3
psd
Glottolog
plai1235
ELP
Plains Indian Sign Language
The attested historical range of Plains Sign Language among other sign languages in the US and Canada (excl. ASL and LSQ)
Extracts of the films taken during the 1930 Conference on PISL conservation, showing General Hugh L. Scott and signers from various tribes[4]A 1900 newspaper illustration claiming to showcase several of the signs of Plains Indian Sign Language
Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL), also known as Hand Talk or Plains Sign Language, is an endangered[5] language common to various Plains Nations across what is now central Canada, the central and western United States and northern Mexico.[6] This sign language was used historically as a lingua franca, notably for trading among tribes; it is still used for story-telling, oratory, various ceremonies, and by deaf people for ordinary daily use.[7]
In 1885, it was estimated that there were over 110,000 "sign-talking Indians", including Blackfoot Confederacy, Cheyenne, Sioux, Kiowa and Arapaho. As a result of several factors, including the European colonization of the Americas, the number of sign talkers declined sharply from European colonization onward. However, growing interest and preservation work on Plains Sign Language has increased its use and visibility in the 21st century.[6] Historically, some have likened its more formal register, used by men, to Church Latin in function.[8] It is primarily used today by elders and deaf members of Native American tribes.[5]
Some deaf Indigenous children attend schools for the deaf and learn American Sign Language (ASL) having already acquired Plains Sign Language.[7] A group studied in 1998 were able to understand each other, though this was likely through the use of International Sign.[7] Jeffrey E. Davis, a leading linguist in documentation efforts,[5] hypothesizes that this contact, combined with potential contact with Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (another potential antecedent to ASL) may suggest that ASL descends in part from Plains Sign Language.[9]: 24–27
^ abRecognition of Sign Language as an Official Language Act (Bill 273). Legislative Assembly of Ontario. 2007.
^Rice, Keren (2020). "Langues des signes autochtones au Canada". In Wilson-Smith, Anthony (ed.). L’Encyclopédie canadienne (in French).
^Public Services and Procurement Canada (October 27, 2020). "TERMIUM Plus®". www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca. Government of Canada. Retrieved August 7, 2023.
^"Indian Sign Language Council of 1930" – via www.youtube.com.
^ abcDavis, Jeffery E. (2016). "Sign Language, Indigenous". In Gertz, Genie; Boudreault, Patrick (eds.). The SAGE Deaf Studies Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. SAGE Publications. pp. 783–786. ISBN 9781483346489.
^ abHilleary, Cecily (April 3, 2017). "Native American Hand Talkers Fight to Keep Sign Language Alive". Voice of America. Retrieved May 25, 2023.
^ abcMcKay-Cody, Melanie Raylene (1998). "Plains Indian Sign Language: A comparative study of alternative and primary signers". In Carroll, Cathryn (ed.). Deaf Studies V: Toward 2000--Unity and Diversity. Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press. ISBN 1893891097.
^Neisser, Arden (1983). The Other Side of Silence. Gallaudet University Press. pp. 91–92. ISBN 9780930323646.
^Davis, Jeffrey E. (2010), Hand talk: Sign language among American Indian nations, Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521690300
and 28 Related for: Plains Indian Sign Language information
The recorded history of signlanguage in Western societies starts in the 17th century, as a visual language or method of communication, although references...
Pueblo, New Mexico). Keresan SignLanguage developed locally, and is unrelated to the trade languagePlainsIndianSignLanguage. Kelley, Walter & Tony McGregor...
the Columbian Plateau. The Crow Nation introduced PlainsSign Talk, which replaced Plateau SignLanguage among the eastern nations that used it (the Coeur...
spoken languages. A signlanguage arose among tribes of American Indians in the Great Plains region of North America (see PlainsIndianSignLanguage) before...
case with Caucasian SignLanguage but not PlainsIndianSignLanguage, which did not involve speech taboo, or deaf signlanguages, which are not encodings...
sign for the number 9 becomes the number 19. In PlainsIndianSignLanguage, the gesture signifies the number 3 when held a bit lower than the signs used...
The Plains Apache are a small Southern Athabaskan group who live on the Southern Plains of North America, in close association with the linguistically...
cultural area (Algonquian and Iroquoian languages) Plains cultural area (Algonquian, PlainsSign, and Siouan languages) Northwest Plateau cultural area (Ktunaxa...
described many common features of PlainsIndians culture: skin tepees, travois pulled by dogs, PlainsIndianSignLanguage, and staple foods such as jerky...
Hand Talk. Also called Prairie SignLanguage, PlainsIndianSignLanguage, or First Nations SignLanguage, this language functioned predominantly—and still...
Plains Cree (endonym: ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ nēhiyawēwin; alternatively: ᐸᐢᑳᐧᐃᐧᓃᒧᐃᐧᐣ paskwâwinîmowin "language of the prairie people") is a dialect of the Algonquian...
of Ghana, Ban Khor Sign Language of Thailand, and PlainsIndianSignLanguage. Many signlanguages are used by small communities; small changes in their...
Quebec SignLanguage, known in French as Langue des signes québécoise or Langue des signes du Québec (LSQ), is the predominant signlanguage of deaf communities...
the Brazos River. By 1840 many plains tribes had made peace with each other and developed PlainsIndianSignLanguage as a means of communicate with their...
American SignLanguage (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant signlanguage of deaf communities in the United States and most of Anglophone...
Massachusett PlainsIndianSignLanguage While most Indigenous languages have adopted the Latin script as the written form of their languages, a few languages have...
project for the ancient language isolate PlainsIndianSignLanguage (ISO 639-3 code: psd) Proto-South Dravidian, unattested language of south India Social...
preservation of PlainsIndianSignLanguage and consulted with General Hugh L. Scott at the Bureau of American Ethnology on Native American signlanguage. Mountain...
Maritime SignLanguage (MSL) is a signlanguage used in Canada's Atlantic provinces. Maritime SignLanguage is descended from British SignLanguage through...
hearing due to an illness, communicated with the Kiowa using PlainsIndiansignlanguage. She lived among the Kiowa for about eleven years, sharing their...
/kɔ́j–gʷú/ in their language. Some older Kiowas will say Kiowa as KI-wah /ˈkaɪ.wɑː/.[citation needed] In PlainsIndianSignLanguage, Kiowa is expressed...
mother tribe of the Arapaho, being indicated in the PlainsIndianSignLanguage (Bee3sohoet) by the sign for "mother people". They absorbed the historic Hánahawuuena...
becomes a valuable addition to the staff, as he is skilled at PlainsIndianSignLanguage, used by Kikakee's owner, Chief St. Cloud. A small group of juvenile...
Global Information
