The lost sign language

[Tumbleweed2009]

I just finished listening to a radio report about a school on Prince Edward island.Who are teaching hearing children at an age of about 3 years old deaf sign language.I thought to myself that is so socially considerate and thoughtful of hearing people to be willing to bring sign language to a point that it is a part of the growing process of children.
Then i had another thought.Wait what happened to the first sign language to exist in the world.I mean the first comprehensive sign language to be used by peoples with vastly different languages.As a means of communicating with each other.I am of course talking about the First nation peoples of North America.I read a book written by a U.S Army captain in 1876.It was his theory that if all the First nation peoples could understand each other with sign language.Then why bother learning the different languages or rely on dubious interpreters to communicate with the different tribes.Needless to say his ideas were not taken up and the rest is history.I am of a white English European background and all my life i have tried to avoid the masses of ignorant people around me.Weather it be in England,Germany or Canada.I see the need for recognition of womens rights,Mens rights,Deaf rights and so on.Well what happened to the right or recognition of the First nations sign language.In my probably limited opinion,each province in Canada should out of respect to the First nations peoples of this land.Have as an official second language the language of the tribe whose traditional territory they occupy.Or if this would cause too much confusion and interruption of government.Then perhaps the First Nation sign language should be used as a form of universal communication.Oh i forgot modern sign language has already spread around the world.Without giving recognition to,or using from an already existing language.To death people who do not feel as connected to languages as the hearing do.I ask you if you could feel a connectedness to the first sign language.The First Nations Sign Language.Many smaller languages around the world are dieing out and with them a cultural diversity that stretches back into prehistory or human history.The Blackfoot language as an example,is spoken fluently by 40% of the population that lives on the reserve.I hate that word,it reminds me of a place to forget about a people.Only 5% still retain some use of their form of sign language.In 20 years time.Spoken Blackfoot will be reduced to 5% of the population and their form of sign language will no longer exist.This form of sign language needs help to survive,it is on the extinction language list.As you may have guessed,i am not hearing impaired,but please don't let that fact distract you from a language similar to yours,that needs help to survive.

 

[Bottesini]

I just finished listening to a radio report about a school on Prince Edward island.Who are teaching hearing children at an age of about 3 years old deaf sign language.I thought to myself that is so socially considerate and thoughtful of hearing people to be willing to bring sign language to a point that it is a part of the growing process of children.
Then i had another thought.Wait what happened to the first sign language to exist in the world.I mean the first comprehensive sign language to be used by peoples with vastly different languages.As a means of communicating with each other.I am of course talking about the First nation peoples of North America.I read a book written by a U.S Army captain in 1876.It was his theory that if all the First nation peoples could understand each other with sign language.Then why bother learning the different languages or rely on dubious interpreters to communicate with the different tribes.Needless to say his ideas were not taken up and the rest is history.I am of a white English European background and all my life i have tried to avoid the masses of ignorant people around me.Weather it be in England,Germany or Canada.I see the need for recognition of womens rights,Mens rights,Deaf rights and so on.Well what happened to the right or recognition of the First nations sign language.In my probably limited opinion,each province in Canada should out of respect to the First nations peoples of this land.Have as an official second language the language of the tribe whose traditional territory they occupy.Or if this would cause too much confusion and interruption of government.Then perhaps the First Nation sign language should be used as a form of universal communication.Oh i forgot modern sign language has already spread around the world.Without giving recognition to,or using from an already existing language.To death people who do not feel as connected to languages as the hearing do.I ask you if you could feel a connectedness to the first sign language.The First Nations Sign Language.Many smaller languages around the world are dieing out and with them a cultural diversity that stretches back into prehistory or human history.The Blackfoot language as an example,is spoken fluently by 40% of the population that lives on the reserve.I hate that word,it reminds me of a place to forget about a people.Only 5% still retain some use of their form of sign language.In 20 years time.Spoken Blackfoot will be reduced to 5% of the population and their form of sign language will no longer exist.This form of sign language needs help to survive,it is on the extinction language list.As you may have guessed,i am not hearing impaired,but please don't let that fact distract you from a language similar to yours,that needs help to survive.

I don't know what you would think we can do. In my most polite phrasing let me point out that ASL has not had recognition for that long and is in some danger.

It is also mostly from the French as you can tell by its order.

Deaf people have too many problems attempting to advocate for themselves, let alone add another group of sign languages belonging to indigenous peoples.

This should be the job of the first nations if they want to band together to revitalize their languages.

 

[Buffalo]

This should be the job of the first nations if they want to band together to revitalize their languages.

Or better yet, they can write a sign-language book so it won't be forgotten.

 

[Bebonang]

Well, I have a native sign language book, but not by an aboriginal, but a white man who want to put First Nation or aboriginal sign language. Yes, it is a lost art of our old sign languages we had used to communicate when we travel to different First Nations and we all used different spoken tongues to speak all over North and South Americas. That is why we used the Native sign language to communicate so that we can understand universally (not on other worlds like Europe and Asia). Now everything is changed because the Whites made us used English including wearing the white clothes and hairs. They forbade us not to speak our native tongues and punished us for speaking the tongues. So we all had to learn English and lost some of our spoken native languages that we are so used to. As times goes on with generations, we tried to learn to speak our tongues from aboriginal schools. Here on the reserve, we have Elders speaking their tongues into the videos so that we can cherish the spoken languages and pass down to our children. I don't know if we could bring our Native sign language back but the book help us to try to remember our signs to communicate. I am deaf from birth and I am used to ASL instead of Native sign language. If I had turned the clock back, I would used the Native sign language with many of my ancestors to communicate and to many First Nations. That would have been great.

Anyway, I want to say to AllDeaf forum. You are welcome to explore and post all the threads here. You are just curious. See you around.

 

[Loghead]

to Alldeaf, Tumbleweed2009.

 

[Lighthouse77]

Well, I have a native sign language book, but not by an aboriginal, but a white man who want to put First Nation or aboriginal sign language. Yes, it is a lost art of our old sign languages we had used to communicate when we travel to different First Nations and we all used different spoken tongues to speak all over North and South Americas. That is why we used the Native sign language to communicate so that we can understand universally (not on other worlds like Europe and Asia). Now everything is changed because the Whites made us used English including wearing the white clothes and hairs. They forbade us not to speak our native tongues and punished us for speaking the tongues. So we all had to learn English and lost some of our spoken native languages that we are so used to. As times goes on with generations, we tried to learn to speak our tongues from aboriginal schools. Here on the reserve, we have Elders speaking their tongues into the videos so that we can cherish the spoken languages and pass down to our children. I don't know if we could bring our Native sign language back but the book help us to try to remember our signs to communicate. I am deaf from birth and I am used to ASL instead of Native sign language. If I had turned the clock back, I would used the Native sign language with many of my ancestors to communicate and to many First Nations. That would have been great.

Anyway, I want to say to AllDeaf forum. You are welcome to explore and post all the threads here. You are just curious. See you around.

This reminds me of what a professional told me when I asked him about the history of Native American in my area. He told me that he know very little known facts about Native Americans in my area because there was not a single logbook, journals, etc. written by a English man (white man) on it. That a lot history about Native Americans is depended on journals. I was suprised by this because I found several arrowheads and fishhooks where I live, so I know there plenty of artifacts, but unfortunately that doesn't tell them enough. At at least not without English written journal.

 

[Bebonang]

Lighthouse, that is true what you said that we don't have enough information on our Native Cultures when the white men (English and even the French) tried to made journals about their experiences and dealed with our "savage" (I hate that word) cultures and painted us for being barbaric aboriginals. As for our ancestors, the ancestors tried to paint in pictorgraphs in caves, rocks, deerskins, and etc. whereever they can find to make histories about their cultures and their experiences. The English or French would try to understand what the pictorgraph is saying like the Egypt writing. I think we had tried to pass down by word of mouth about our histories over the generations. Usually we used storytelling whether the stories were true or false. That was something we will never know, I guess. But you made a good point.