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egislative assembly of ontario 4 language codes iso 639 3 psd glottolog plai1235 elp plains indian sign language map of the various sign languages spoken across north america excluding francosign languages plains sign language is labelled in red as hand talk extracts of the films taken during the 1930 conference on pisl conservation showing general hugh l scott and signers from various tribes 5 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 plains sign talk 6 7 plains sign language or first nation sign language 4 is an endangered 8 sign language common to the majority of indigenous nations of north america notably those of the great plains northeast woodlands and the great basin it was and continues to be used across what is now central canada the central and western united states and northern mexico 9 this language was used historically as a lingua franca notably for international relations trade and diplomacy it is still used for story telling oratory various ceremonies and by deaf people for ordinary daily use 10 in 1885 it was estimated that there were over 110 000 sign talking indians including blackfoot cheyenne sioux kiowa and arapaho as a result of the european colonization of the americas most notably including american boarding and canadian residential schools the number of sign talkers has declined sharply 11 however growing interest and preservation work on the language has increased its use and visibility in the 21st century 9 historically some have likened its more formal register used by men to church latin in function 12 it is primarily used today by elders and deaf citizens of indigenous nations 8 some deaf indigenous children attend schools for the deaf and learn american sign language asl having already acquired plains sign language 10 a group studied in 1998 were able to understand each other though this was likely through the use of international sign 10 jeffrey e davis a leading linguist in documentation efforts 8 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 13 24 27 etymology edit while there are many names for the language hand talk is the preferred term in indigenous communities 14 the term is a calque of the language s own name for itself 15 other names for the language are used like plains sign talk and plains indian sign language the latter favored exclusively in the united states but these are erroneous as hand talk extends beyond the great plains into the northeast woodlands the great basin and beyond indeed as mckay cody writes 2019 hand talk itself should be considered a family of closely related languages 1 whilst the name hand talk is a direct translation from the language itself each nation has their own word or name for hand talk in their respective oral languages algonquian languages arapaho bee3osohoot bee3sohoet 16 blackfoot a psstówahsin 17 cheyenne évȯhónestȯtse 18 plains cree isiniskêstâkêwin ᐃᓯᓂᐢᑫᐢᑖᑫᐃᐧᐣ 19 caddoan languages pawnee ikstaaruhuraawaahʾuʾ 20 iroquoian languages seneca gayeöni h 21 na dene languages navajo yideez 22 siouan languages crow baapáattuua 23 dakota wikiyutapi 24 ho chunk nąąp hoit e 25 lakota wíyutȟapi nakoda wíyutabi 26 stoney wowîhâ îabi 27 uto aztecan languages comanche mootekwaʔpʉ̠ moʔotekwapʉ̠ 28 ute wanawmanik 29 history edit hand talk s history is intimately associated with both ancient and recent petroglyphs of the continent 3 however little is known to academia about plains sign talk s historical antecedents 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 30 these records include the accounts of cabeza de vaca in 1527 and coronado in 1541 citation needed signing may have started in the southern parts of north america 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 it is known that there is a complex of maya sign languages called meemul chʼaabʼal or meemul tziij in the kʼicheʼ language 31 but it is unknown to what extent meemul tziij has affected hand talk citation needed the northwest is home to plateau sign language which is either a single language or a family of sign languages spoken by the local nations it is also unknown how associated plateau sign language is with hand talk but it is probable that they are related although it is still spoken especially by the ktunaxa the plateau nations historically shifted to using chinook jargon instead 32 in recent years the oneida nation has taken steps to revive their sign language historically the nations of the northeast woodlands like the haudenosaunee spoke a variant of hand talk 1 the oneida sign language project officially began in 2016 and more signs are being added to this day 33 34 35 geography edit this section needs more citations please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources unsourced material may be challenged and removed august 2026 learn how and when to remove this message sign language use has been documented across speakers of at least 37 oral languages in twelve families 36 spread across an area of over 2 6 million square kilometres 1 million square miles 10 13 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 citation needed the various nations with attested use divided by language family are citation needed algonquian anishinaabe arapaho blackfoot cheyenne cree gros ventre athabaskan apache mescalero lipan jicarilla and kiowa apache beaver navajo sarcee caddoan arikara pawnee wichita coahuiltecan atakapa coahuilteco karankawa tonkawa iroquoian haudenosaunee wendat numic comanche paiute shoshone ute plateau penutian sahaptian nez perce palus sahaptin umatilla piman akimel o odham tohono o odham and continuing into northern mexico puebloan hopi keresan zuni tanoan kiowa taos salishan coeur d alene flathead kalispel sanpoil spokane siouan dakota crow hidatsa lakota mandan nakoda nakota omaha osage oto ponca yuman maricopa unclassified cayuse melanie r mckay cody a cherokee deaf woman and hand talk speaker researcher motions that plains sign language is actually a family of inter related languages extending beyond the great plains she breaks down the regional languages as northeast hand talk including oneida sign language plains sign talk great basin sign language spoken for example by the ute and southwest hand talk she also notes a west coast language spoken by the chumash and she advances the idea that inuit sign language has some relation to this complex of manual north american indigenous languages unmentioned is coast salish sign language 2 within each of these languages she explains that nations will themselves have specific dialects such as the blackfoot 1 37 southwest hand talk is spoken by the navajo hopi apache and pueblo peoples citation needed however amongst the navajo and keres people there are two unrelated sign languages also spoken keresan sign language and by a navajo clan with a large number of deaf members navajo family sign 38 39 likewise plateau sign language may or may not be related to hand talk citation needed writing edit hand talk s writing system is picture writing in the form of petroglyphs pictographs and hieroglyphs 3 40 41 42 it is one of the few sign languages with a written form as mckay cody writes 2019 of petroglyphic rock writing although not necessarily linear the pieces are pictographic narratives 43 cherokee greek author thomas king dispels the myth that all literature in the americas was only oral in his book the truth about stories a native narrative in fact pictographic systems petroglyphs pictographs and hieroglyphics were used by a great many nations to commemorate events and to record stories 44 rock writing served a variety of purposes from narratives to marking territory to locator signs akin to modern day road signage the latter of which would be to indicate water sources trails through canyons and flash flood zone warnings 45 as hand talk is a visual spatial language its writing is similarly non linear and visual 46 in a study on writing in ute country núuchi tuvupu 47 mckay cody points out that since the hand talk spoken in the great basin positions the past to the left and future to the right as opposed to american sign language which positions the past and future as behind and in front of the signer respectively rock writing of the region often similarly represent narratives chronologically from left to right 48 in contrast plains and uto aztecan nations sign and thus read and write the past and future from right to left such as the lakota winter counts 49 elevation size and direction of individual petroglyphs also encode semantics such as temporal spatial and other concepts 50 51 the logographic picture writing of hand talk blurs the lines between art and writing many signs were written in the way they were signed for example the word for hungry involves an upward facing flat hand cutting across one s stomach written its glyph is of a human with a line through their stomach 52 however deviating from the standard glyph stylistic versions could also be drawn that are still readable to a hand talk speaker 53 hand talk was not isolated to petroglyphic rock writing anishinaabe wiigwaasabakoon and lakota winter counts are examples of writings on birch bark scrolls and buffalo hides respectively it is unknown what relation if any the hieroglyphic mi kmaw suckerfish script has with hand talk during the era of colonization plains sign language was also written on paper for example a letter from the parents of an interned kiowa student belo cozad was sent to carlisle indian school in pennsylvania in 1890 from his parents 54 phonology edit see also american sign language phonology garrick mallery s original 1880 handshape glossary 55 la mont west working under the guidance of alfred kroeber and charles f voegelin was an early pioneer in not only the phonological analysis of plains sign language but sign language phonology in general in his unpublished dissertation he developed a notation system and analysed plains sign language as having eighty two phonemes which he called kinemes each being able to be broken down further in terms of features he analyzed signs as morphologically complex that others such as william stokoe would analyze as monomorphemic and many of his findings were later rediscovered 56 his study of plains sign language was taking place at the same time as stokoe s seminal studies of asl phonology 13 85 west analyzed plains sign language as having non isolable phonemes classified as handshapes directions referents motions or motion patterns and dynamics four of these parallel the now widely recognized sign language parameters handshape orientation location and movement which arose out of stokoe s and other researchers later work on a variety of sign languages the fifth dynamic is unique to west s analysis though it may be present in other sign languages as well west argued that this analysis avoids the issue of having signs consisting of a single phoneme be composed of multiple morphemes 57 5 13 134 135 58 direction paralleling vowels there are eight distinctive directions including the directions of either touching or being parallel to the referent it can be combined with handshape to designate pointing or facing with the referent where it surfaces as placement or with movement i e motion dynamics where it specifies the direction of movement handshape paralleling consonants nine basic handshapes can be rounded or unrounded to form a total of 18 distinct handshapes referent numbering 40 these account for the greater phonemic inventory of plains sign language compared to most spoken languages this can be a part of the hand head leg body or an external referent motion patterns there are four motion patterns consisting of the shape of any movement 57 10 16 a phoneme cannot occur in isolation although a morpheme may consist of only one phoneme 57 6 dynamics edit there are twelve dynamic phonemes working similarly to suprasegmentals like stress or tone in that while every sign must be made with some speed or force only certain ones are marked dynamics can either change the way another phoneme like a handshape or motion is realized or modify the entire package or sub package 57 5 15 phoneme level dynamics edit motion dynamic by default the movement in a motion takes place at the elbow a motion may be articulated at the wrist instead in which case it is said to have an additional phoneme combined with it called the motion dynamic if wrist movement is done in addition to another movement the motion dynamic has been combined with a long extent dynamic 57 37 stress there are two phonemic stresses tense and lax as well as the default unmarked stress when combined with a handshape these correspond respectively to over and underextension of the hand s extended parts compared to the basic handshape with motions they characterize the motion as either strong and fast or weak and slow a motion can also combine with two stress dynamics with one specifying the tension of a motion as either tense or light and the other the speed when no stress dynamic is present motions default to an intermediate force and speed and tension is irrelevant 57 42 extent the long and short phonemic extents represent lengths in a variety of contexts with a referent they specify that the hand is held far from or close to the referent relative to the default distance with a motion they specify the length of the motion as long or short with the default length being mid length 57 42 lengthening a motion moves the articulation from the elbow to the shoulder 57 37 they may also combine with a stress dynamic or another extent dynamic in which case they exaggerate them citation needed rounding or diphthongizing this non phonemic dynamic serves two purposes it is used with the unrounded handshapes to generate the rounded handshapes like how voicing can generate voiced consonants from unvoiced ones citation needed it can also be used to diphthongize any two directions to form a compromise direction midway between them which west compared to doubly articulated consonants he noted that while doubly articulated consonants are usually described as separate phonemes the number of diphthongized pairs of directions in plains sign language is too great to grant them all phonemic status 57 39 package level dynamics edit hand specifiers by default a sign can be made with either hand though the right hand is more...
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