Hand Talk

Mimsy

Mimsy

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I was looking at books on amazon.com and I saw one about Native American "hand talk". This is what was written:

All varieties of American Indian Sign Language are currently endangered, but prior to the cultural disruption caused by European colonization, it was commonly used across a large swath of North America from the Gulf of Mexico to Calgary, Canada, an area of over 1 million square miles. It spread so far because it was used as a lingua franca between Native American nations speaking at least 40 different languages, but it was also used within native communities as an alternative to their spoken languages and as a primary language for deaf people. The current number of signers is unknown, but it is clear that there are still a number of users across North America, both hearing and deaf.

It looks like Native hand talking is older than ASL. Wow!
 
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I think Bebonang would have something to say of interest in this topic.
 
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Thats pretty amazing. In class i found out there are a lot of different types of signing forms used all over the world, i was amazed. Being Native American Indian, im pretty interested in that. Ty for the post :)
 
BecLak said:
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I think Bebonang would have something to say of interest in this topic.
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That would be great!



Devyn231 said:
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Thats pretty amazing. In class i found out there are a lot of different types of signing forms used all over the world, i was amazed. Being Native American Indian, im pretty interested in that. Ty for the post :)
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You're welcome.
What tribe?
 
Many years ago before the white settlers move in, we had used American Indian Sign Language for many years to communicate with other tribes for trades or to have peace because they spoke different dialects and had different languages (we call it tongues). No tribe could not speak the same language we normally spoke. That is why there are some natives back then invented the sign language to communicate with different tribes for this purpose. Also for the Deaf natives, we use that to communicate so that we can understand what everyone in the tribe said. That would be our primary American Indian Sign Language. Yes, it is both hearing and Deaf that are able to use American Indian Language. True, it is disappearing fast and there are only a few American Indian signers. I still use ASL and not much into American Indian Sign Language. Remember Natives had tried to save their own languages after they have been forced to speak in English. So their languages are disappearing too but they had tried to put in video and tell stories so they can preserve their languages. Well, same goes for American Indian Sign Language, they had made video of them signing telling the stories, but the video sometimes are not clear because of the age of the video. We still want to preserve American Indian Sign Language as much as we can to preserve it. I think someone would be able to make American Indian Sign Language into a book and probably make a fresh new video so that we can preserve this way. We will talk more. :)
 
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50% Little River band of Ottawa Indians & 20% Potawatomi. Rest is German.... Talk about an inner conflict. Im from a closed adoption & just found everything out, in detail about 7mo ago :)
 
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Wow, lots of info Id never had thought about, thanks Bebonang!
 
Devyn231 said:
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Wow, lots of info Id never had thought about, thanks Bebonang!
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You are welcome.

I am glad to meet you as Native. You will learn about a lot of things that you did not know about. :)
 
that bit like welsh..english banned people from speaking welsh about sametime as native american langage got banned, but they speak it now in school.i gather there welsh sign but i imagine not many people use it.
 
caz12 said:
that bit like welsh..english banned people from speaking welsh about sametime as native american langage got banned, but they speak it now in school.i gather there welsh sign but i imagine not many people use it.
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I can't find anything on Welsh sign, when I lived in Wales all I ever heard about was BSL, and the only classes I found information about were BSL too. The Welsh Council for the Deaf's website only mentions BSL.

Whether the suppression of spoken Welsh is a factor, I'm not certain but I wouldn't doubt it.
 
Hey, Native here too! I'm Hlhe-pai N'de (Lipan Apache) enrolled and whatnot. I am also in a Native history Graduate program, I focus on Native gender and sexuality from pre colombian through the colonial eras. Just wanted to throw that in there. I don't know about my tribe's hand signs though, there are very few speakers of my tribes dialect of apache even left i only know a few sentences.
 
AlauraBorealis said:
Hey, Native here too! I'm Hlhe-pai N'de (Lipan Apache) enrolled and whatnot. I am also in a Native history Graduate program, I focus on Native gender and sexuality from pre colombian through the colonial eras. Just wanted to throw that in there. I don't know about my tribe's hand signs though, there are very few speakers of my tribes dialect of apache even left i only know a few sentences.
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What are you doing in Indiana if you are far from the Southwest? Are you just a Native Urban that you are living in the city? I am just being nosy.

I have never heard of Native gender unless it is about gay natives or sexuality many eons ago. Colombian are from Mexico and possibly from South America. We still have native gay people both in the reservations and in the cities. Nothing new about that. But it tells you about what happen to the Natives in all of North America, Mexico, Central America and South America. We had faced a lot of hardship with the European people back then.

Right now we are trying to preserve languages like our natives dialect and American Indian Language so that they will not forget and want to learn how to speak/or sign their tribe languages.

Today, most tribes tried to refresh learning how to speak their own tribe languages. There are some Elders that had already spoken their own tribe languages and were put in the video to tell their stories of what they learned long time ago. Same thing with the American Sign Language, where the Native signers will explain or tell the stories about what happen in the past like the Buffalo Hunt. That way the Band offices or the museums will be able to save them for later use to help them learn their native language.

I hope to see you more around here, AlauraBorealis. :wave:
 
Bebonang- Do you know of any good books, or resources that discuss sign language use in the Indian population? I'm enrolled in a Native American history class, and when I asked my teacher about it he wasn't too familiar. He is Osage...so at least I'm getting the real story, but I'd like to learn more and share it with him...
 
Bebonang said:
What are you doing in Indiana if you are far from the Southwest? Are you just a Native Urban that you are living in the city? I am just being nosy.

I have never heard of Native gender unless it is about gay natives or sexuality many eons ago. Colombian are from Mexico and possibly from South America. We still have native gay people both in the reservations and in the cities. Nothing new about that. But it tells you about what happen to the Natives in all of North America, Mexico, Central America and South America. We had faced a lot of hardship with the European people back then.

Right now we are trying to preserve languages like our natives dialect and American Indian Language so that they will not forget and want to learn how to speak/or sign their tribe languages.

Today, most tribes tried to refresh learning how to speak their own tribe languages. There are some Elders that had already spoken their own tribe languages and were put in the video to tell their stories of what they learned long time ago. Same thing with the American Sign Language, where the Native signers will explain or tell the stories about what happen in the past like the Buffalo Hunt. That way the Band offices or the museums will be able to save them for later use to help them learn their native language.

I hope to see you more around here, AlauraBorealis. :wave:
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My dad's family moved to Indiana when he was a kid because his sister had rare form of cancer and Riley's Hospital for Children is in Indianapolis. I've lived my whole life in Indiana but we always visited the South West when I was growing up. I go to Indiana University now and will hopefully go to University of Oklahoma for my PhD.

My main focus of study is how the difference between Native views on gender and sexuality and European views on gender and sexuality affected colonization and Native/White relations. I don't know about yours but my tribe has 4 genders for example.

I'm glad to meet you :)
 
:wave: Bebonang I liked reading what you wrote about the Native hand talking and history, :ty: for sharing more on this. One of my college teachers was Anishinaabeg and he had many good stories to teach.

Alaura, :wave: liked learning more of your thoughts too!
 
AlauraBorealis said:
My main focus of study is how the difference between Native views on gender and sexuality and European views on gender and sexuality affected colonization and Native/White relations. I don't know about yours but my tribe has 4 genders for example.
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That sounds really interesting. Not deliberately trying to get off topic or anything but that deserves it's own thread. I'd really like to know more about that if you have the time and are keen on sharing with us. :wave:
 
MsSaraB said:
That sounds really interesting. Not deliberately trying to get off topic or anything but that deserves it's own thread. I'd really like to know more about that if you have the time and are keen on sharing with us. :wave:
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Sure I'm always happy to share.:ty:
 
I have a copy of Universal American Indian Sign Language by William Tompkins (C. 1926) which I bought in 1969. It's illustrated with good sketches. Not sure if it's still in print.

BTW,I'm triracial (W African,Native American,European) and an Afro-American and Native American history buff.
 
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