The hidden history of an ancient language.
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Centuries before we had American Sign Language, Native sign languages, broadly known as “Hand Talk,” were thriving across North America. Hand Talk would be influential in the formation of American Sign Language. But it has largely been written out of history.
One of these Hand Talk variations, Plains Indian Sign Language, was used so widely across the Great Plains that it became a lingua franca — a universal language used by both deaf and hearing people to communicate among tribes that didn’t share a common spoken language. At one point, tens of thousands of indigenous people used Plains Indian Sign Language, or PISL, for everything from trade to hunting, conflict, storytelling, and rituals.
But by the late 1800s, the federal government had implemented a policy that would change the course of indigenous history forever: a violent boarding school program designed to forcibly assimilate indigenous children into white American culture — a dark history that we’re still learning more about to this day.
Because of a forced “English-only” policy, the boarding school era is one of the main reasons we lost so many Native signers — along with the eventual dominance of ASL in schools for the deaf.
Today, there are just a handful of fluent PISL signers left in the US. In the piece above we hear from two of these signers who have dedicated their lives to studying and revitalizing the language. They show us PISL in action, and help us explore how this ancient language holds centuries of indigenous history.
Note: The headline on this piece has been updated.
Previous headline: Before American Sign Language, we had “Hand Talk”
Read more from Melanie McKay-Cody on the history of Plains Indian Sign Language:
Check out Lanny Real Bird’s videos:
Much of the footage of the 1930 Indian Sign Language Council isn’t online, but check out some of it here:
Here are some original books we reference on sign talk:
The Smithsonian holds lots of photos and archives on Plains Indian Sign Language like this:
Sarah Klotz on how Native American boarding schools like Carlisle contributed to the loss of PISL: She references archives that shows how students continued to use sign language like this one from the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center:
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Here's a bit of history we couldn't fit into the piece: During the late-1800s, the push to assimilate indigenous people into white America paralleled another movement: the push to assimilate deaf people into "speaking" culture. It was called "oralism." Proponents — like Alexander Graham Bell (https://www.gallaudet.edu/history-through-deaf-eyes/online-exhibition/language-and-identity/the-influence-of-alexander-graham-bell/) — deemed sign language "uncivilized," and pushed for lip reading and spoken, English education. By 1880 they even passed an international resolution that banned sign language education.
Though this resolution mostly affected white schools — it wasn't until almost 100 years later that ASL would be recognized as a fully formed language. But as we reported in the piece, there was no big renaissance of Plains Indian Sign Language at that time. Native hearing students were forced to speak English in boarding schools, and Native deaf students, in many cases, were forced to replace PISL with ASL. –Ranjani
They’re not Indians.
To be fair, I don't think English only policies are meant to exclude people from their culture, but to make sure they can function and succeed in the community that is providing that education. You can't work in a bank if you only speak Crow.
Oh the hand talk was something
Wonderful! I love PISL & I don't even know it!
Best video
this sign language should become a global lingua franca
Thank you, it was interesting.
honestly this version(s) of sign language looks very easy to learn
Very interesting! Because I know Italian and international signs language ☺️, but for deaf.
See why can't we speak with our hands to everyone, it would mean as parents and grandparents get old they won't have a hard time communicating, and def people won't be excluded from anything
Sign language should be taught and used in schools
It's mighty peculiar that the evil colonizers bad deeds here in the west are constantly put in the forefront of institutional historical lessons are only a few generations ago, and yet these oppressors offspring in america a couple hundred years later somehow behave nothing like them. (Barring any governmental entity , which shouldnt count, since that's how corporatocracys always function ,regardless. ) Yet we are never taught in school thay Columbus left Spain on the same day a certain group of people were being banned from Spain. And he got backing Spain through deceit and other treachery. Not white!!! Nor were the owners of 80%-100% of the ships going back and forth to Africa. Look into it!!
so good
Indiginous American heritage is so incredibly rich! Admirable!
This is one of my favorite vids from Vox
I remember early 1980s in Browning, Montana seeing two old men carrying on a conversation with their hands.
I saw characters in the movie Dance with Wolves they use a lot of hand talk! ❤❤❤ it’s the origin of sign language
took ASL for 3 years in highschool and never found out this amazing fact about the origins of asl from pisl
FINGER LANGUAGE
This video was so cool to watch as it is what I have intuitively known forever. I’m Northern Tutchone and when elders tell stories in our language they always sign/act it out too so even if you don’t understand the words you know what is happening. I didn’t realize that I speak this way too, but it’s so helpful when you are trying to communicate with someone who doesn’t speak the same language as you. Elders in the Yukon can understand each other even though there are 13 distinct language and even more dialects in our territories.
This video was so cool to watch as it is what I have intuitively known forever. I’m Northern Tutchone and when elders tell stories in our language they always sign/act it out too so even if you don’t understand the words you know what is happening. I didn’t realize that I speak this way too, but it’s so helpful when you are trying to communicate with someone who doesn’t speak the same language as you. Elders in the Yukon can understand each other even though there are 13 distinct language and even more dialects in our territories.
I’m half First Nations Canadian and half French Canadian. Linguistic genocide is real. For most my life I’ve only known a few words or my native language (Wendat) they were words secretly kept by my my great great grandmother, she taught my grandmother her secret words and told my grandmother to keep them secret until she had a daughter and then that daughter would keep them to teach her own daughter. I’m 26 and I was a language keeper without knowing it as I held onto those words myself. In the last ten or so years a few elders who were scattered around Canada and a few in the states were located and helped recreate the language. My cousins got to learn our language in school and im envious of them. Growing up I was made to feel ashamed for being First Nations… I’m very white passing so eventually I just stopped talking about it until it came time to talk about why so little of us know our cultures. I was lucky enough to learn our dances and our way to hunt and thank the earth, our stories and I would hold onto them. I also have always been very vocal of the residential schools in Canada… my own mother went to one. The horrors of those places were no joke. I can promise you every family lost a child to those schools… many children who went missing… every family has at least one. I know of 3 in my own, two of which were my great grand father’s aunts. And one of his brothers.
Fascinating history. Thanks for "uncovering" it and reporting about it!! So important to keep links to the past. Love the discussion as well.
I'd give my left foot to see Hand Talk become the lingua franca of Turtle Island. Dozens of fluent speakers? O.o makes me feel panicky.
is it wrong for a white person to try to learn hand talk?
Thank you for the documentary. Very well!
2:41
5:17
I learned PISL from my granny and BASL from my cousins. Nobody teaches this stuff in school 😞
You're a native American
As a kid I was always facinated by what I now know as "Hand Talk" that I saw in the movies and on TV. So, this video was really moving for me to see that this was not just something that was made up by Hollywood. HOW can I learn this language today!?
I'm trying to learn languages and hand signs
Great, good to know thebsign for my people is the scalping sign.
🎉🎉🎉thank you fir sharing. I sm sharing this video on another platform. Gracias
It took me too long to put together explicitly, but I was introduced to indigenous hand talk by Chief Hotate in Parks and Recreation. It always stood out to me that he simultaneously spoke and signed his response to Leslie greeting him in Wamopoke. I'm sure Joss introduced that piece of his heritage to the scene himself. RIP to him, and thanks to him and that show for educating me on such an incredible, unrecognized, and endangered piece of Indigenous culture.
After watching this it was a special pleasure to hit the like button… THUMB UP
I always use the hand sign for question when im not certain about something. and i dont know anyone who uses it or have i ever learned it
❤
6:46 😢😢😢
Interesting..are you using it?