Sign Languages in Contact (1563683563)

Sign
Languages
in
Contact
David Quinto-Pozos, Editor

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Sign Languages in Contact

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Ceil Lucas, General Editor
VOLUME 1 Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities

VOLUME 2 Multicultural Aspects of Sociolinguistics in Deaf
Communities
VOLUME 3 Deaf Children in Public Schools
VOLUME 4 Pinky Extension and Eye Gaze: Language Use in Deaf
Communities
VOLUME 5 Storytelling and Conversation: Discourse in Deaf
Communities
VOLUME 6 Bilingualism and Identity in Deaf Communities
VOLUME 7 Sociolinguistic Variation in American Sign Language
VOLUME 8 Turn-Taking, Fingerspelling, and Contact in Signed
Languages
VOLUME 9 Language and the Law in Deaf Communities
VOLUME 10 To the Lexicon and Beyond: Sociolinguistics in European
Deaf Communities
VOLUME 11 The Rising of Lotus Flowers: Self-Education by Deaf
Children in Thai Boarding Schools
VOLUME 12 Multilingualism and Sign Languages: From the Great
Plains to Australia
VOLUME 13 Sign Languages in Contact
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Sign Languages
in Contact
David Quinto-Pozos, Editor
G A L L AU D E T U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S
Washington, D.C.
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Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities

A Series Edited by Ceil Lucas
Gallaudet University Press

Washington, D.C. 20002
http://gupress.gallaudet.edu
© 2007 by Gallaudet University.

All rights reserved
Published in 2007
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 1-56368-356-3
ISSN 1080-5494

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper

for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
FM_Sign_Pozos_Gaul_193027 7/30/07 11:17 AM Page v
Contents
Editorial Advisory Board, vii

Series Editor’s Introduction, ix
Editor’s Introduction: Outlining Considerations for the Study of
Signed Language Contact, 1
David Quinto-Pozos
PART ONE: CONTACT IN A TRILINGUAL SETTING

Māori Signs: The Construction of Indigenous Deaf Identity in New
Zealand Sign Language, 31
Rachel Locker McKee, David McKee, Kirsten Smiler, and
Karen Pointon
PART TWO: LEXICAL COMPARISONS

North American Indian Signed Language Varieties: A Comparative
Historical Linguistic Assessment, 85
Jeffrey Davis
Comparing the Lexicons of Japanese Sign Language and Taiwan

Sign Language: A Preliminary Study Focusing on the Difference in
the Handshape Parameter, 123
Daisuke Sasaki
PART THREE: LANGUAGE ATTRITION

Evidence for First-Language Attrition of Russian Sign Language
among Immigrants to Israel, 153
Judith Yoel
PART FOUR: FOREIGN ASSISTANCE AND LANGUAGE CONTACT

Albanian Sign Language: Language Contact, International Sign,
and Gesture, 195
Karin Hoyer
The Sign Language of Mainland China at the Ch’iying School

in Taiwan, 235
Jean Ann, Wayne H. Smith, and Chiangsheng Yu
v
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Contributors, 259
Index, 263
vi : contents
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Editorial Advisory Board
Robert Bayley Lourdes Pietrosemoli

Department of Linguistics University of the Andes
University of California, Davis Merida, Venenzuela
Davis, California Claire L. Ramsey
Jeffrey E. Davis Teacher Education Program
College of Education, Deaf University of California, San
Studies and Educational Diego
Interpreting La Jolla, California
University of Tennessee John Rickford
Knoxville, Tennessee Department of Linguistics
Stanford University
Trevor Johnston
Stanford, California
Department of Linguistics
Macquarie University Adam Schembri
Sydney, Australia Deafness, Cognition and
Language Research Centre
Susan M. Mather University College London
Department of Linguistics London, United Kingdom
Gallaudet University
Laurene Simms
Washington, D.C.
Department of Education
Carolyn McCaskill Gallaudet University
Department of ASL and Deaf Washington, D.C.
Studies Graham H. Turner
Gallaudet University Translation and Interpreting
Washington, D.C. Studies
Stephen M. Nover Heriot-Watt University
Center for ASL/English Edinburgh, Scotland
Bilingual Education Elizabeth Winston
and Research Educational Linguistics Research
Gallaudet University Center
Washington, D.C. Loveland, Colorado
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FM_Sign_Pozos_Gaul_193027 7/30/07 11:17 AM Page ix
Series Editor’s Introduction
It is with great pleasure that I welcome Volume 13 to the Soci-

olinguistics in Deaf Communities series! Work on language contact in
Deaf communities has focused almost exclusively on the outcomes of
contact between spoken and written majority languages and sign lan-
guages. Such work has been very valuable, as it has helped us see paral-
lels and differences between language contact outcomes in exclusively
spoken language communities and communities that involve both a spo-
ken language and a signed language. Studies of the outcomes of contact
between languages in two modalities—signed and spoken—have
pushed us to re-think very basic concepts such as bilingualism, code-
switching and code-mixing. Such studies have helped us understand
unique phenomena such as fingerspelling and initialization. What has al-
ways been lacking is data-based research on the outcomes of contact be-
tween natural sign languages, the kind of research that this volume
brings together. Following a comprehensive and useful introduction to
the issues to consider when discussing contact between sign languages
by guest editor David Quinto-Pozos, the volume provides information
on contact situations that involve sign languages of Deaf communities
from New Zealand, Japan, Israel, Russia, Albania, China, Taiwan, and
the United States. The U.S. example is an examination of the contact be-
tween ASL and North American Indian signed languages, which demon-
strates how sign languages of Deaf communities can interact with sign
languages used by groups of hearing people who do not share the same
spoken language. In these papers, we see parallels with spoken language
contact situations but also issues unique to sign languages in contact
such as iconicity, gesture, and the interlingual similarity of sign lan-
guages. It is my hope that this pioneering volume will provide a model
for many more studies of sign languages in contact.
Ceil Lucas
Washington, D.C.
ix
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INTRO_Sign_Pozos_Gaul_193027 7/30/07 11:19 AM Page 1
Editor’s Introduction: Outlining
Considerations for the Study
of Signed Language Contact
David Quinto-Pozos
To my knowledge, this volume represents the first book-length collec-

tion of various accounts of contact between sign languages, and this
brings with it excitement as well as the realization of challenges that lie
ahead.1 As many researchers who are interested in language contact
might suggest, it is exciting because these chapters contribute to our un-
derstanding of the structural and social aspects of contact and how such
contact affects language in the visual-gestural modality. They provide us
with information about Deaf communities throughout the world, as well
as language data that speak to the ways in which contact is manifested
in those communities. This global perspective allows us to examine con-
tact situations in search of commonalties and recurring patterns. It also
enables us to see how some outcomes of contact between sign languages
might or might not fit the general patterns of contact that have been
demonstrated for spoken languages. Perhaps as a way to balance the ex-
citement about this topic, the sobering truth is that we know so little
about contact between sign languages. As a result, we are faced with the
task of documenting examples of such contact and the challenge of ex-
amining the effects of visual meaning creation on linguistic structures
that occur in these contact situations. By focusing on this area of inquiry,
we stand to gain much knowledge about how language works.
The study of language contact among signed languages forces us
to carefully consider how the visual-gestural modality of human com-
munication influences language birth, development, change, and de-
cay or loss from disuse. Sign languages and sign language varieties are
emerging in various parts of the world, and they are developing
quickly. It is unclear how such rapid birth and development are par-
alleled in spoken language situations, although likely candidates for
1
cross-modal comparisons would be spoken language pidgins and cre-

oles. Some varieties of signed language might also be quickly declining
in use as a result of influence from other sign languages. This phenom-
enon is to be expected because it also occurs when spoken languages
come into contact, although what we know about these cases is mini-
mal. I suggest that certain characteristics of language in the visual-ges-
tural modality influence the results of contact between sign languages.
These factors and some of the relevant works from the literature are
discussed in this introductory chapter.
LANGUAGE CONTACT IN SPOKEN LANGUAGE LITERATURE
Language contact has been an active area of linguistic inquiry in the

past few decades. Within the last decade alone, several volumes have
been devoted to various approaches to the study of contact between spo-
ken languages and the multitude of phenomena that result. For example,
one of the authors of a classic work on language contact (Thomason and
Kaufman 1988) has published an introductory book on the topic that
serves as a useful resource for various students and those who are inter-
ested in linguistics (Thomason 2001). Another work presents a frame-
work composed of several models that have been suggested in previous
writings to account for various types of contact data — mostly from a
code-switching perspective (Myers-Scotton 2002). Holm (2004) pre-
sents data from various language varieties as he explores the concept of
“semi-creolization,” although the author uses the term “partially struc-
tured grammars” in that work. As further testament to the importance
of publishing entire volumes on the topic of language contact,
Cambridge University Press has begun an interdisciplinary series de-
voted to the topic, and three volumes have been published to date
(Mufwene 2001; Clyne 2003; Heine and Kuteva 2005).
Language contact phenomena are as complex as the linguistic reper-
toires and social situations of the individuals and communities who en-
gage in contact between languages or language varieties. Moreover,
there are many lenses through which to examine language contact. One
could focus on the social aspect — taking into consideration issues such
as prestige, power, and social class, which influence what languages or
language varieties are acceptable in any given situation. Alternatively,
2 : david quinto-pozos
one could zoom in the linguistic microscope to examine the numerous

and sometimes overlapping types of influences languages exert on one
another. Some of these commonly discussed topics are borrowings and
loans, interference, convergence, transference, bilingualism, code
switching, foreigner talk, language shift, language attrition, and even
language decline and death. Keep in mind that these and other fre-
quently used terms are, at times, defined in different ways by different
authors. In addition to these topics, some researchers focus on the emer-
gence of new varieties of language (e.g., pidgins and creoles) that arise
in contact situations. Some authors focus on lexical items, whereas oth-
ers address grammatical matters. Those who work on bilingualism
could consider the subject at the level of the individual or the commu-
nity (i.e., societal bilingualism).
The result of significant interest in the topic of language contact — as
reflected in the spoken language literature — has been the development
of a sizeable and still growing corpus of examples of contact data. In
most cases, this reflects contact between languages that are centuries old,
although there might also be work on younger varieties such as pidgins
and creoles. This is worth noting because many sign languages do not
have the long histories of development that characterize spoken lan-
guage varieties. Furthermore, examples of spoken language contact en-
able us to examine interactions between structurally similar languages,
as well as those that are substantially different from one another. That
level of linguistic diversity may not entirely be the case with sign lan-
guage contact.
LANGUAGE CONTACT IN SIGNED LANGUAGE LITERATURE
Perhaps the most-studied aspect of signed language contact has been

the way in which sign languages interact with spoken and/or written lan-
guages. The degree of lexical similarity between various sign languages
has also been extensively studied, and this is arguably an area of inquiry
that is relevant to the study of contact. In particular, lexical comparisons
can be useful when considering contact phenomena, although they pre-
sent the challenge of addressing the role of visual iconicity in the devel-
opment of sign lexicons. A smaller percentage of works have addressed
issues such as the effects of contact between two sign languages, the use
Introduction : 3
of International Sign (IS) by deaf people from various countries, and lan-
guage attrition and/or death that result, in part, from contact.
Contact between Signed and Spoken/Written Languages
Some of the earliest writings on contact between English and American

Sign Language (ASL) conceptualized the phenomenon as influencing the
creation of language varieties that were labeled Pidgin Sign English (PSE)
(Woodward 1973b), but a possible diglossic situation in the American
Deaf community was also suggested (Stokoe 1970; Woodward 1973a).
The label PSE seems to have come about because of the ways in which the
purported intermediate varieties of language use, along a continuum of
ASL and English at either end, show “reduction and mixture of gram-
matical structures of both languages as well as some new structures that
are common to neither of the languages” (Woodward 1973b, 40). For in-
stance, Woodward identified the variable uses of various structures such
as articles, plural markers, and the copula — none of which are common
to both English and ASL. That variable use was what Woodward and oth-
ers referred to as PSE — a label that has continued to be used, at least in
some circles, until the present day.
However, over the years, various authors have pointed out that, in
several ways, PSE does not seem to resemble spoken language pidgins.
For instance, Cokely (1983), by looking at ways in which deaf people in-
teract with hearing people, argued in favor of an analysis that labeled
such language use as instances of foreigner talk, judgments of profi-
ciency, and ASL learners’ attempts to master the target language. Lucas
and Valli (1992) isolated and listed features of both ASL and English in
the signing of various informants included in their dyad- and triad-based
data. Their analysis suggested that the term contact signing was a more
appropriate label for varieties of sign language that combine features of
ASL and English and exhibit significant individual variation in terms of
the occurrence of features. They also pointed out that, despite the indi-
vidual variation, some linguistic features from ASL and English seldom
occur in contact signing, such as ASL nonmanual syntactic markers that
occur with topicalization and various bound morphemes from English
(e.g., plural -s, third-person singular -s, possessive ’s, past tense -ed, or
comparative -er). Fischer (1996) also pointed out that the alleged pidgin,
PSE, is the opposite of what is typically found in spoken language pid-
gins since its vocabulary comes from the substrate (ASL), whereas its
grammar comes from the superstrate (English).
The work of Lucas and Valli (1992) represents one of the first exten-
sive discussions of various facets of language contact in and around a
Deaf community and was preceded by shorter works on the subject (e.g.,
Lucas and Valli 1988, 1989, 1991). In their writings, these authors dis-
cuss several possible outcomes of contact between a signed and a spoken
language, but they are careful to distinguish between those contact phe-
nomena that have parallels in spoken language contact and those that
are unique to contact between a signed and a spoken language. They
maintain that the latter can be found in fingerspelling, fingerspelling/
sign combinations, mouthing, CODA-speak, TTY conversations, code
switching, and contact signing (which they also termed code mixing).
Lucas and Valli also suggest that code switching can occur between sign
and spoken/written language as well, but the main difference when ad-
dressing it in the signed modality is that the simultaneous use of devices
from both modalities (e.g., signs from the visual-gestural modality, along
with mouth movements — and perhaps even vocalizations — from the
auditory-oral modality) allows for simultaneous combinations of various
linguistic devices from both languages. This differs from the most com-
mon form of spoken language code switching, in which the switching
primarily takes place sequentially.
Lucas and Valli (1992) also make several other important points.
First, the simultaneous or sequential use of ASL and English forms in a
signed segment makes it very difficult to determine whether the signer is
actually code switching or simply borrowing elements from one language
and using them in another. As a result, they suggest the use of a third
term, contact signing, to describe the result of frequent contact between
ASL and English.2 In their other main themes, the authors discuss issues
that arise when one investigates language use by individuals, communi-
ties, and societies. One of their suggestions is that the locus of study for
contact situations should really be the behavior of the individual, al-
though they also claim that the occurrence of many ASL and English fea-
tures of contact signing cannot be predicted solely by this method. In
other words, one cannot predict which features of contact signing an
“average” member of the Deaf community will use in any given situa-
tion. Yet, despite the unpredictable nature of an individual’s signing in a
specific situation, the authors were able to identify various common fea-
tures of contact signing at the lexical, morphological, and syntactic lev-
els. As a final note, Lucas and Valli remind the reader that, inasmuch as
contact situations are dynamic rather than static, a similar (i.e., dynamic)
Introduction : 5
perspective for the analysis of contact situations is necessary. Such a

standpoint would take into account the fact that language behavior can
change rapidly based on both the interlocutor and the linguistic back-
ground of the language user.
The code switching that some deaf users of ASL and Cued Speech en-
gage in has also been viewed as a form of contact between ASL and
English.3 In this system, consonant and vowel sounds are represented by
the hands, and, in theory, any spoken language can be cued. Hauser
(2000) describes the signing of a ten-year-old girl who is fluent in both
ASL and Cued English and gives examples of how she code-switches be-
tween the two forms of manual communication.
Fingerspelling has also been viewed as one of the products of contact
between a signed and a spoken or written language, although some re-
searchers highlight the ways in which fingerspelling has been incorpo-
rated into the signed language, while others describe it as more of a for-
eign element that lies outside the core lexicon. Taking the former
viewpoint, Battison (1978) addressed the manner in which some finger-
spelled words become lexicalized over time, and Akamatsu (1985)
stated that fingerspelled words form “articulatory envelopes” that re-
semble signs in some ways. Davis (1989, 97) also suggests that finger-
spelling is, by its nature, an ASL phonological event — not an example
of borrowing — because, as he maintains, “ASL morphemes are never
borrowed from the orthographic English event; they are simply used to
represent [emphasis in the original] the orthographic event.” Other re-
searchers have also discussed the manner in which fingerspelled items
can form compounds with ASL signs (Brentari and Padden 2001;
Padden 1998), the suggestion that fingerspelling can be viewed as code
switching between ASL and written English (Kuntze 2000), and the
claim that fingerspelling can also be considered a form of borrowing
(Miller 2001).
Another characteristic of contact between a signed and a spoken lan-
guage is the mouthing of spoken words while producing signs. Several au-
thors have addressed this phenomenon with data from ASL and English
(Davis 1989, 1990), Swiss German Sign Language and German (Boyes
Braem 2001), and other European sign languages (see Ann 2001 for a
brief discussion of relevant works). In addition, a number of authors have
described code switching and code mixing between a signed and a spoken
language. For instance, researchers have looked at the manner in which
code switching, as a function of the language background and use of the
interlocutor, is performed by deaf adults (Hoffmeister and Moores 1987;

Lee 1983) and deaf children (Kachman 1991).
In the present volume, Rachel McKee, David McKee, Kirsten Smiler,
and Karen Pointon address contact between deaf and hearing people by
discussing how, within an ethnic minority, the hearing members can af-
fect the expression of identity by the deaf users of a sign language.
Approximately 40 percent of the deaf users of New Zealand Sign
Language (NZSL) have cultural and historical ties to the indigenous
Māori culture. However, their deafness has historically precluded them
from participation in Māori cultural events and activities. In recent
years, the New Zealand deaf population with ties to Māori culture has
begun to learn more about the minority culture, including its language-
based references. This learning has resulted in an increase in the number
of signs that are used in NZSL for references to Māori cultural concepts.
However, the situation, which McKee et al. carefully describe, is far from
simple inasmuch as the negotiation of new lexical elements by deaf
Māori, hearing Māori, and trilingual (Māori, English, and NZSL) inter-
preters creates a complex interplay that is the perfect setting for a dis-
cussion of signed language contact.
Addressing Lexical Similarities between Sign Languages
Several studies that have compared lexical items across sign languages
generally agree that sign languages are lexically more similar to each
other than are spoken languages. Although this may not be a result of
contact between sign languages, some researchers have investigated the
likelihood of historical contact (e.g., McKee and Kennedy 2000; Davis,
this volume). Higher degrees of lexical similarity clearly hold even for
languages that are unrelated and whose users live in very disparate parts
of the world. As a result, these works raise questions about the role of
visual iconicity in the development of sign languages and in the compar-
ison of sign lexicons.
A high degree of lexical similarity has been observed in comparisons
of various European sign languages with Chinese Sign Language and
Israeli Sign Language (Woll 1984); comparisons of North American sign
languages (ASL and Mexican Sign Language [LSM]) with two from
Europe (French Sign Language and Spanish Sign Language) and one
from East Asia (Japanese Sign Language [JSL]; Guerra Currie, Meier, and
Walters 2002); and comparisons of Spanish Sign Language with the sign
languages of Northern Ireland, Finland, and Bulgaria (Parkhurst and
Introduction : 7
Parkhurst 2003). These works provide a snapshot of the lexical charac-

teristics of sign languages from around the globe.
There is some debate, however, about the degree of similarity. In a com-
parison of pairs of twelve sign languages, Woll (1984) found that no pair had
a similarity score of less than 40 percent, and some pairs showed 80 percent
similarity. In their analysis of four different sign languages (Mexican Sign
Language, Spanish Sign Language, French Sign Language, and Japanese Sign
Language), Guerra Currie et al. claimed that even unrelated sign languages
(i.e., those between which no known contact has occurred and which are
embedded in hearing cultures that are very different from each other, e.g.,
LSM and JSL) show modest degrees of lexical similarity. In fact, the authors
found that 23 percent of the selected sign lexicons of LSM and JSL were sim-
ilarly articulated. Guerra Currie et al. suggest, as have other writers, that
there likely exists a base level of similarity between the lexicons of all signed
languages regardless of the existence of any historical ties. According to
them, this base level of similarity may be 20 percent or more.
Parkhurst and Parkhurst (2003) focus on the importance of separat-
ing noniconic signs from those that could be interpreted iconically in in-
terlingual lexical comparisons. They looked at four European sign lan-
guages (from Spain, Northern Ireland, Finland, and Bulgaria), as well as
different dialects of the sign language of Spain (from Madrid, La
Coruña, Granada, Valencia, and Barcelona). Among their conclusions is
a recommendation for higher thresholds for determining relatedness be-
tween sign languages. What likely contributes to varying estimates of
lexical similarity is that different authors have not always used the same
criteria for their analyses. Despite that, it has clearly been shown that
even unrelated sign languages have some lexical similarities, which is
likely a result of the iconic nature of some signs.
In a comparison of the sign languages of the United Kingdom,
Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, McKee and Kennedy
(2000) have demonstrated that ASL is very different, at least lexically,
from the varieties that have connections to nineteenth-century British
Sign Language (BSL). This is true in spite of the claim that ASL may have
been influenced somewhat by BSL of the late-eighteenth and early-
nineteenth centuries as a result of the sign language used on Martha’s
Vineyard, which likely influenced the development of ASL. According to
Groce (1985, 73), the “sign language used on the Vineyard seems to have
had a considerable time depth and thus may have been based on an
English sign language.”
Two works in the present volume add to our knowledge of sign lan-
guage histories by comparing signs from different sign languages. Jeff
Davis takes a long overdue look at the signs used by Native Americans of
North America during the beginning and development of ASL. Davis first
compares signs used by various tribes and, based on an 80 to 90 percent
degree of lexical similarity across the systems, concludes that they are vari-
ants of a single variety of North American Sign Language — what he refers
to as Plains Indians Sign Language (PSL). Additionally, Davis compares
PSL to early twentieth-century ASL. That comparison yields about a 50
percent lexical similarity, which, according to the metrics for lexical com-
parison proposed by Parkhurst and Parkhurst (2003), suggests that PSL
and ASL are different languages but may have items that were borrowed
from one language to the other in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Davis also provides some interesting accounts taken from the writings of
nineteenth-century educators such as Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, and
those writings offer valuable information about possible contact and in-
fluence between the two North American sign languages.
Another work on the topic of lexical comparisons between sign lan-
guages, this time with the focus on two Asian sign languages, is authored
by Daisuke Sasaki, who addresses lexical contact between JSL (also re-
ferred to as NS, or Nihon Syuwa, in some works but referred to as JSL in
this volume) and Taiwan Sign Language (TSL). Historical accounts of the
development of TSL cite JSL as one of the sign languages that influenced
the development of TSL. Thus, Sasaki compares lexical items with an em-
phasis on the handshape parameter of articulation, and he further focuses
the analytical lens on similarly articulated signs — those that differ only in
one phonological parameter (i.e., handshape for Sasaki’s analysis) but
share the same meaning. Sasaki finds that a number of similarly articulated
TSL-JSL signs show that TSL appears to contain handshapes that may be
more difficult to articulate than those found in the JSL signs. The author
suggests that this is due to conservatism on the part of TSL, which has al-
lowed that language to retain older forms that may have also been a part
of JSL but no longer exist in that language because of language internal
changes that tend toward efficiency and ease of articulation.
Contact between Two or More Signed Languages
Lucas and Valli (1992) have briefly discussed several possible out-
comes of contact between two signed languages: lexical borrowing; for-
eigner talk; interference; and the creation of pidgins, creoles, and mixed
Introduction : 9
systems. Whereas these areas of inquiry have not yielded many pub-
lished writings, there also likely exist unpublished works that provide
descriptions of signed language contact. A list of characteristics of
signed language that seem to influence such contact is found in the next
section, but first I present a review of contact between sign languages in
terms of lexical borrowing, code switching, interference, IS as a pidgin,
and language attrition and death.
Lucas and Valli (1992) caution that it would be difficult to determine
the difference between an instance of lexical borrowing and code switch-
ing (or code mixing) in signed language. The issue is that, in spoken lan-
guage work, borrowings have often been characterized by the integra-
tion of the borrowed word into the phonology of the other language,
but this integration may not be evident in signed language. The authors
maintain that this is because sign language phonologies share many
basic components. Thus, in an environment in which two sign languages
are frequently used, it might be difficult to definitively determine which
phonology (e.g., that of Language A or Language B) the signer is using
in some instances. Because of this, the authors claim that using terms
like borrowing and code switching may be problematic when looking at
signed language contact situations.
Keeping in mind these points about code switching versus borrowing,
my dissertation work (Quinto-Pozos 2002) provides evidence that U.S.-
Mexico border signers of LSM and ASL engage in code switching. That
work and another (Quinto-Pozos, Forthcoming-a) describe the sequen-
tial use of synonymous signs from ASL and LSM for the purposes of re-
iteration — much like certain switches described in spoken languages
(e.g., see Auer 1998; Eldridge 1996; Pakir 1989). In some cases, the re-
iterative switches seem to emphasize a particular sign, and at other
times, they appear to be used to ensure that an interlocutor compre-
hends the message. However, there also seem to be examples of reitera-
tive switches that do not place a focus on the switched item.
In addition, I present examples of nonreiterative switches and the
complexity of dealing with items that may be articulated similarly in
both sign languages and, as a result, are relatively transparent to the
interlocutor (Quinto-Pozos, Forthcoming-a). Examples are various types
of points, so-called classifier constructions, commonly used gestures,
and the more mimetic-looking examples often referred to as construc-
tion action. When such meaningful devices exist within the sign stream,
it is not clear how to label a particular utterance (e.g., a so-called classi-

fier construction from Language A or Language B, an emblem from the
ambient hearing community versus a sign, or the use of constructed ac-
tion versus a language-specific lexical item).
As a result, investigators of code switching in signed language face the
task of examining the way in which signers switch not only between the
two languages but also between meaningful linguistic versus nonlinguis-
tic elements. The latter (e.g., points, other gestural material) may even
co-occur with the linguistic devices of the sign languages, and this must
be addressed as well. The data presentation and analysis in my work
(Quinto-Pozos 2002, Forthcoming-a) focus primarily on lexical phe-
nomena, but ultimately an in-depth syntactic analysis of code switching
between two sign languages is needed to compare this phenomenon
across languages in the two modalities. For such phrase-level analyses, a
framework for treating pointing, the use of gestures, and the use of
mimetic devices in signed language must be employed.
Interference is another possible outcome of contact between two sign
languages that Lucas and Valli (1992) have discussed. Interference can
be described as the surfacing of the articulatory norms of one sign lan-
guage in the production of another. Some instances of this phenomenon
may be evident in the phonological parameters of sign formation. Lucas
and Valli (ibid., 35) refer to this type of interference as follows: “It might
be precisely the lack of phonological integration that might signal inter-
ference — for example, the involuntary use of a handshape, location,
palm orientation, movement, or facial expression from one sign lan-
guage in the discourse of the other.” Interference may also be evident at
other levels of language structure, such as the morphology or syntax of
one or both of the signed languages.
Interference is also treated in my own work (Quinto-Pozos 2002,
Forthcoming-b). The analyses focus primarily on the phonological pa-
rameter of handshape, the LSM and ASL nonmanual signals that are
used for wh-question formation, and the mouthing that sometimes ac-
companies signed language production. The data indicate that signers,
like users of spoken language, exhibit features of interference when they
articulate items from their nonnative language. For example, a signer
who grew up in Mexico signing LSM might sign ASL family with an
LSM F handshape rather than an ASL F handshape. The two hand-
shapes are similar, but they differ in the contact between thumb and
Introduction : 11
index finger and also in the amount of spread between the nonselected
fingers (i.e., the middle and ring fingers and the pinky). In terms of
mouthing, signers from Mexico sometimes produce ASL signs while si-
multaneously mouthing Spanish words, although the production of LSM
with English mouthing is also a common linguistic practice of some sign-
ers who live along the border. In most cases, whether such interference is
always predictable based on the profile of the signer is unclear.
In terms of the creation of mixed systems as a result of contact, it is
vital to include discussion of IS, a “type of signing used when deaf sign-
ers communicate across mutually unintelligible language boundaries”
(Supalla and Webb 1995, 334). Deaf individuals who interact with each
other, primarily at international gatherings, use IS for communication.
As a result, IS could be said to be “foreigner talk.” There do not appear
to be native users of IS, which is employed only for restricted purposes.
In these ways IS resembles spoken language pidgins, but Supalla and
Webb suggest that it is much more structurally complex than spoken pid-
gins; in some ways IS more closely resembles full-fledged sign languages
than pidgin languages.
The complexity of IS has been described in terms of the rule-governed
nature of its syntactic structure and various features of its vocabulary.
For example, Supalla and Webb (1995) claim that verb agreement, word
order, and negation in IS are systematic and rule governed. They report
that verbs are frequently inflected and in complex ways. The word order
of IS is usually SVO, but it can also be described in terms of other struc-
tures in which pro-drop and object function account for the surface
structure of the phrases. With regard to negation, Supalla and Webb
(ibid., 346–47) claim that a signer of IS appears to use “a limited num-
ber of negative devices similar in structure and form to those used in full
signed languages.” In a more recent work, Rosenstock (2004) looks
closely at the structure of IS and finds that it is indeed more complex
than one would expect from a pidgin language. Rosenstock also reports
that IS contains highly iconic signs, as well as more arbitrary ones that
may be loans from full sign languages. By describing a number of gram-
matical and otherwise communicative devices used in IS, Rosenstock
shows that IS contains an “extremely complex grammatical system with
a rather limited lexicon” (212). Comprehension tasks conducted during
Rosenstock’s study show that IS is more easily understood than natural
sign languages (for people who do not know those languages), but a sig-
nificant amount of information is nevertheless not transparent to the
viewer. Additionally, Rosenstock reports that there even seem to be dif-

ferences between how interpreters and presenters produce IS. McKee and
Napier (2002) also address IS, as produced by interpreters at a confer-
ence, and corroborate earlier research that claims that IS is structurally
complex. In the present volume, Karin Hoyer also discusses IS.
In another study that is included in this volume, Yoel reports an un-
fortunate outcome of language contact. She focuses on the attrition of
Russian Sign Language (RSL) in several individuals who immigrated to
Israel and subsequently learned Israeli Sign Language (ISL). The data are
taken from Yoel’s master’s thesis, which was completed in 2001. In the
current volume, Yoel examines the situation of Russian Deaf immigrants
to Israel from both linguistic and nonlinguistic perspectives. An analysis
of language data obtained through two lexical naming tests yields evi-
dence of attrition of RSL, which is attributed to influence from ISL. To
understand the causes of attrition, Yoel adopts the social psychology
framework of ethnolinguistic vitality as she examines various facets of
the lives of the deaf immigrants to Israel. These analyses consider the sit-
uations in both Israel and the former Soviet Union. Her conclusions sug-
gest that the attrition of RSL is linked to the types of opportunities that
are encountered by Russian deaf immigrants in Israel.
Finally, language death has also been suggested, albeit minimally, to
result from contact between sign languages. Much of this contact is a re-
sult of the work of foreign missionaries, foreign instructors, and even
deaf people from those countries who have learned ASL and other
Western sign languages and returned to their own country. Woodward
(2000) claims that indigenous sign languages of Southeast Asia seem to
be dying out and are apparently being replaced by signed languages in-
fluenced by ASL or French Sign Language (LSF). Many sign languages
that are used in Africa have undergone significant contact with ASL
(Lane, Hoffmeister, and Bahan 1996), although there are also sugges-
tions that even that contact is not threatening the existence of the natu-
ral sign language. Schmaling (2001) suggests that ASL in contact with
Hausa Sign Language (HSL) in northern Nigeria has resulted in the ap-
pearance of some ASL forms in HSL (e.g., loan signs and the use of the
manual alphabet for the creation of initialized signs). Despite that,
Schmaling indicates that some HSL users have little contact with native
signers of ASL and that the influence of ASL on HSL remains limited.
Her prognosis is that “Hausa Sign Language will survive as an inde-
pendent, full-fledged sign language” (192).
Introduction : 13
That optimistic outlook, however, may not be shared by Nonaka

(2004) in her account of indigenous sign languages of Thailand. In par-
ticular, she writes of the need to remember sign languages in discussions
of language endangerment and in language preservation efforts. Nonaka
discusses indigenous varieties of sign language in Thailand such as Ban
Khor Sign Language and those referred to as Old Bangkok and Old
Chiangmai sign varieties. Whereas the national sign language, Thai Sign
Language, seems to be thriving, according to Nonaka, the future of the
indigenous varieties is uncertain. It is clear that language contact can re-
sult not only in the creation of new varieties but also in the drastic al-
teration or destruction of others.
CHARACTERISTICS OF SIGNED LANGUAGE THAT LIKELY

INFLUENCE CONTACT IN THE VISUAL-GESTURAL MODALITY
Based on various themes that repeatedly surface in writings about

signed language contact, I propose that at least three prominent charac-
teristics of signed languages influence the outcomes of contact in that
modality. The characteristics are listed in Table 1, and each is addressed
in the following section. The three characteristics are not necessarily mu-
tually exclusive, and they may interact to various degrees. Whether or
not these characteristics result in contact phenomena — over the long
term — that are different from what is observed with spoken languages
is unclear. However, they are important points to consider when ad-
dressing signed language contact.
The Prevalence of Iconicity
One of the most commonly discussed topics in the field of sign lin-
guistics is the iconic characteristics of sign languages and the various im-
plications of that iconicity (e.g., the effect on language structure, lan-
guage acquisition, language learning, language processing, language
table 1. Characteristics of Signed Language That Likely Influence Contact in

the Visual-Gestural Modality
The prevalence of iconicity

The utilization of gestural (i.e., nonlinguistic) resources
The interlingual structural similarity of sign languages
change). In various cases, the fact that signed language contains much vi-
sual iconicity does not seem to alter the way in which it is acquired (e.g.,
Meier 1982; Newport and Meier 1985) or how it is processed and re-
membered (Poizner, Bellugi, and Tweney 1981). Despite the fact that
iconicity is a prominent feature of sign languages, such languages also
develop noniconic ways of communicating information (e.g., Frishberg
1975; Klima and Bellugi 1979; Cormier 2002). However, for the areas of
inquiry that deal with signed language contact (either with another sign
language or with users of spoken language), iconicity is particularly im-
portant because it likely allows people who do not use the same language
to comprehend each other more easily than if they relied exclusively on
spoken and/or written language. This could have a huge effect on the
outcome of such contact.
Iconicity is present in various signed language devices. It is evident in
the signs of so-called classifier constructions, which resemble some part
of the referent (e.g., Klima and Bellugi 1979; Taub 2001; Liddell 2002;
Quinto-Pozos 2007), and it is also present in metaphorical constructions
(Taub 2001; Wilcox 2002). Aspects of iconicity are also evident in the
ways in which signers use their entire upper bodies to portray postures
and movements of an animate referent (Metzger 1995; Liddell and
Metzger 1998; Taub 2001; Quinto-Pozos 2007).
Because visual iconicity is so prevalent in sign languages, its role in
cross-linguistic signed communication should be carefully examined.
The degree of iconicity in signed language can be considered a true
modality difference between sign and speech: Both have iconicity, but
signed languages are much more characterized by visual iconicity than
spoken languages are by auditory iconicity (Liddell 2002). In some cases,
iconicity can make certain signs and gestures transparent (to varying de-
grees) to a nonsigner of a particular sign language. As a result, investi-
gators of signed language contact have to take into account the efficiency
gained by having visual iconicity assist in the creation of meaning.
Visual iconicity perhaps allows deaf people to communicate with each
other across the globe more easily than hearing people who speak dif-
ferent languages. Pizzuto and Volterra (2000) certainly found that to be
the case when they compared the performance of deaf signing versus
hearing nonsigning participants from throughout Europe in a test of
their ability to comprehend transparent and nontransparent Italian Sign
Language (LIS) signs. In general, some LIS signs are transparent to deaf
and hearing people alike, whereas others are more difficult to decipher.
Introduction : 15
However, deaf signers consistently guessed the meanings of signs even

though they were not LIS signers. As a result, the authors suggest that
the data point to “the existence of potential universals across sign lan-
guages” (283). The “universals” that they refer to are mostly due to the
prevalence of iconicity in the visual-gestural modality. The Pizzuto and
Volterra study seems to echo some of the comments made by early writ-
ers on the topic of the interlinguistic intelligibility of sign languages
(Battison and Jordan 1976; Jordan and Battison 1976; Mayberry 1978);
specifically, it suggests that there are ways in which the viewer of an un-
known sign language can understand a portion of what is being com-
municated. However, this certainly does not mean that sign languages
are universal and easily understood by all. Rather, the use of iconic and
mimetic forms — interspersed with linguistic material that is more ab-
stract in nature — may allow the nonuser of a sign language to under-
stand at least part of the message.
The Utilization of Gestural Resources
Signers take advantage of commonly used nonlinguistic gestures from

the ambient hearing — and perhaps even Deaf — communities. Some of
those gestures may become part of the lexicon or grammar of the sign
languages as evidenced, in part, by changes in their articulation vis-à-vis
the manner in which hearing people use those gestures. However, deaf
signers also articulate gestures that, at least on the surface, do not appear
to differ from some of those that hearing people use in conjunction with
speech. As with iconic devices, such gestural resources — some of which
become lexicalized or grammaticized over time and others that remain as
gestures — present challenges for the researcher of signed language con-
tact. One challenge for some analyses (e.g., a syntactic account of code
switching) is to determine whether a meaningful form is, in some cases,
a sign or a gesture.
Various authors have suggested ways in which the gestures — both
manual and nonmanual — of hearing people can now be considered as
part of a sign language. For example, Janzen and Shaffer (2002) main-
tain that some hand gestures have been grammaticalized as modals in
ASL and that some facial gestures (specifically brow raise) have been in-
corporated as nonmanual signals that provide syntactic information
(e.g., topic markers). McClave (2001) has also proposed that nonmanual
signals (e.g., head shifts for direct quotes) in ASL have been influenced
by the gestures of hearing people. Casey (2003a, 2003b) has shown that
directional gestures and torso movements of nonsigners are similar to

verb directionality and torso movement for role shift in signed language.
She suggests that directionality in ASL (and other sign languages) origi-
nates from nonlinguistic gestures, but first- versus non-first-person dis-
tinctions have been grammaticized; thus not all of the directional ges-
tures can be considered purely gestural.
Another way in which signers use the common gestures of the hearing
communities in which they are situated is through their use of emblems
or emblematic gestures. These meaningful gestures have been discussed
by various authors (e.g., Efron 1941; Ekman and Friesen 1969; Kendon
1981, 1988; de Jorio 2000; McNeill 2002), who have described them as
culture-specific displays that normally follow standards of form. In some
instances, they actually substitute for spoken words, but they can ac-
company speech as well. Pietrosemoli (2001) writes about the emblems
(or “cultural signs,” in her terminology) that hearing Venezuelans com-
monly use and that signers of Venezuelan Sign Language (LSV) also pro-
duce. She reports that the emblematic signs appear to reflect a code
switching of emblems with linguistic items or a borrowing of the em-
blems into LSV. Pietrosemoli suggests that code switching and lexical
borrowing are related to deaf Venezuelans’ interaction with hearing
Venezuelans and the concept of politeness. She employs the Brown and
Levinson (1987) model of politeness as a framework to show that the use
of some emblematic signs by LSV signers is intentional (but not face
threatening), whereas some serve as face-threatening acts. Additionally,
she describes how cultural misunderstandings, due to the mutual inac-
cessibility of the languages in question, are the result of the use of em-
blematic signs.
In Quinto-Pozos (2002, 2004), I note that emblematic gestures alter-
nate with lexical signs of LSM and ASL in the discourse of some deaf
signers who live along the U.S.-Mexico border. For instance, the emblem
that I have glossed as “well” (see Figure 1; consisting of palms turned up-
ward and an optional shrug of the shoulders and/or tilt of the head to
one side) occurs with high frequency in the contact data, and the emblem
was produced by signers of both LSM and ASL.
Specifically, that emblem appeared 236 times within a data set of
6,477 lexical items, which translates into a frequency of approximately
36 per 1,000 signs. By way of comparison, the most frequent non-
pronominal lexical item in the ASL corpus described in Morford and
MacFarlane (2003) was name, with a frequency of 13.4 per 1,000 signs.
Introduction : 17
figure 1. The emblem/gesture well as produced in the LSM-ASL contact

data.
In the Morford and MacFarlane data set, well occurred with a fre-
quency of 7.5 per 1,000 signs, although those authors seem to have con-
sidered that item an ASL sign as opposed to a commonly used gesture.
One of my points (Quinto-Pozos 2004) is that emblems such as “well”
should be categorized separately from the lexical signs of a sign language
because it is not clear whether they are signs of the language (i.e., bor-
rowings) or emblems that have been code switched. This could be par-
ticularly important if linguistic studies were to use emblems for data-
elicitation tasks. The interaction of emblems with linguistic structures
has been studied minimally at best; and at this point it is unclear
whether they are processed differently than lexical signs.
Ways in which signers direct or “point” signs — either to present or
hypothetical entities — should also be considered in signed language
contact analyses. According to some accounts (e.g., Liddell 2002, 2003),
some signs are directed at physically or conceptually present entities and
can be described along linguistic and gestural parameters. The gestural
parameters are presumably understood, at least to some degree, cross-
linguistically, and this could impact cross-linguistic communication.
Liddell (2002, 75) suggests that “Signers know where things are and di-
rect signs toward them through the ability to point. The handshapes,
orientation of the hand(s), the type of movement (straight, arc), are lin-
guistically defined. The directionality of the signs is not linguistically
defined. It is variable, depending completely on the actual or conceptu-
alized location of the entity the sign is directed toward.”
If Liddell’s account is accurate, the variability of the directional com-

ponent of the sign provides a challenge for contact researchers because
they normally rely upon fixed linguistic components of lexical material
(e.g., signs, words) from the two (or more) source languages to investi-
gate the forms that the lexical items in the contact variety take. If there
are no fixed components for directionality in some signs, as Liddell sug-
gests, then the investigator must devise other means to determine what is
influencing what in those cases.
The Interlingual Structural Similarity of Sign Languages
Based on the sign languages that have been studied thus far, it seems
that the majority (if not all) share various structural features. Lucas and
Valli (1992) suggest that sign language phonologies are more similar to
each other than spoken language phonologies, and Newport and Supalla
(2000) point out that sign languages show more typological similarity to
each other than spoken languages, at least in terms of their morpholog-
ical structure. If one uses an agreement analysis for sign language verbs,
signs languages seem to favor object agreement over subject agreement.4
Additionally, sign languages tend not to use lexical items for spatial de-
scriptions (e.g., where a spoken language would use a preposition) but
rather use the signing space for indicating such relationships. All sign
languages seem to have a subset of verbs that do not indicate subject and
object by using the sign space, and those verbs — commonly referred to
as “plain verbs” — rely on word order for indicating the subject and ob-
ject of a verbal construction within a clause (Padden 1983). However,
certain sign languages have auxiliary verbs that indicate subject and/or
object in the sign space — thus providing a way for most (if not all) of
the verbs in those languages to use pointing for grammatical relation-
ships (Rathmann 2000). Finally, all of the sign languages studied thus far
contain so-called classifier constructions, which allow the signer to com-
municate various types of information such as figure, ground, motion,
location, orientation, direction, manner, aspect, extant, shape, and dis-
tribution (Schembri 2003).
There are, of course, some differences across sign languages. For ex-
ample, differences in phonetic inventories and phonological processes
exist, but, compared to phonetic and phonological variations across
spoken languages, they seem to be relatively few. As mentioned earlier,
some sign languages have auxiliary verbs that aid in the use of the sign
Introduction : 19
space to depict grammatical relationships, while some do not. Basic

word order across sign languages is not as uniform as the use of space
for showing grammatical relationships in conjunction with the verb
(Newport and Supalla 2000). Moreover, signers certainly use nonmanual
signals (e.g., head tilt, eyebrow raise and furrow) in different ways for
grammatical and prosodic functions. As an example, a wh-question in
ASL requires a brow furrow, whereas the same type of question in LSM
requires a backward head thrust.
Some writers have suggested that the similarities among sign lan-
guages may be partly due to the fact that they are relatively young (it is
believed that the oldest sign languages currently in use date to approxi-
mately the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and that the youngest
have been created within the last twenty to thirty years). Their histories
are thus not long enough to show evidence of significant divergence
(Newport and Supalla 2000; Meier 2002; Aronoff, Meir, and Sandler
2005). The similarity across sign languages is true for those that are ge-
netically related, as well as those that are purported to have developed
with little or no historical or genetic relationship to other sign languages.
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE STUDY OF SIGNED

LANGUAGE CONTACT
One must also keep in mind various other points when studying
signed language contact. Several sociolinguistic factors make them
unique and different from most spoken languages. Whether or not these
factors influence the outcomes of signed language contact, they should be
considered in discussions of this topic.
As with all sociolinguistic studies of sign languages, one must remem-
ber that the vast majority of users were not exposed to signed language
as infants or young children. In the United States the likelihood that a
deaf child will have deaf parents is roughly 4 to 8 percent (Mitchell and
Karchmer 2004), and those are the children who are generally exposed
to ASL from birth. Whether similar percentages of native deaf signers
exist in other countries with Deaf communities — either emerging or es-
tablished — is unclear, although Karin Hoyer’s chapter in the present vol-
ume suggests that it is certainly not the case for Albania.
Another point has to do with the role of education and/or foreign
assistance in the development of sign languages. In various Deaf com-
munities throughout the world, the indigenous sign language or visual-

gestural system of a community has been influenced by foreigners who,
often with the best of intentions, have brought their ability to communi-
cate in sign. Having collected data in Mexico, I know firsthand the chal-
lenges of trying to communicate with a user of another sign language
without using the one with which I am more comfortable. Regardless of
whether one does it intentionally, it is possible that a foreigner will intro-
duce new elements into a sign language. Woll, Sutton-Spence, and Elton
(2001) claim that education is a common domain for this type of influ-
ence, and they touch upon the influence of Gallaudet University and its
students as vessels of such impact. The influence of foreign signing visi-
tors upon a Deaf community is perhaps more common than we imagine,
and this is the very type of situation that Hoyer describes in her chapter
in this volume.
Karin Hoyer examines the case of Albanian Sign Language and its
growth from pre- to post-Communist Albania. She suggests that the
Hoxha regime did not allow for the development of a community of deaf
people who could create a full-fledged sign language over time. Hoyer
suggests, rather, that in predemocratic Albania, deaf people relied heav-
ily on fingerspelling, with a few indigenous signs that may have been in-
fluenced largely by the emblematic gestures of the ambient hearing cul-
ture. After contact with other Deaf communities through International
Sign (and perhaps other sign languages), the sign system of Albanian
Deaf people became lexically richer. Hoyer also states that the use of the
new signs (now referred to as Albanian Sign Language or AlbSL) occurs
mostly within the social spheres of urban males in Albania, while females
in rural areas are the least likely to be using AlbSL.
Jean Ann, in collaboration with Wayne H. Smith and Chiangsheng
Yu, provides us with another interesting situation in this volume. They
show us that, in a specific context, a variety of a sign language can spring
up quickly but later disappear if the sociolinguistic environment is not
strong enough to support it. Specifically, Ann et al. write about a deaf ed-
ucation setting in Taiwan and the use of Mainland China Sign Language
(MCSL) by instructors and students at the Ch’iying School for the Deaf
in southern Taiwan. That school has an interesting history: It was estab-
lished by a deaf man from Mainland China in the 1960s, and the lan-
guage of instruction for fifteen to twenty years was a variety of MCSL.
However, the school closed in the early 2000s. This situation is particu-
larly noteworthy because the Ch’iying signers, upon leaving school after
Introduction : 21
the sixth grade, had to learn Taiwan Sign Language (TSL) in order to in-
teract with other deaf people in Taiwan. One of the authors’ goals was
to determine whether the MCSL of the Ch’iying signers had any recog-
nizable effects on TSL. In addition to providing the reader with a rich
history of the establishment and various facets of the Ch’iying school,
Ann et al. present excerpts of Smith’s unpublished writings on the
Taiwanese school and other historical accounts of TSL.
A FEW FINAL WORDS
There is much to be learned by studying contact in the visual-gestural

modality. Although research on certain aspects of this topic has been oc-
curring for years, the present volume adds examples and data from sign
language communities around the world that are affected by their inter-
action with other sign languages. This area of inquiry is ripe for study.
One of the challenges of creating a book-length treatment of this
complex topic is that there is a dearth of published materials on which
to build. As a result, the reader will notice that various authors through-
out this volume rely on information that has been obtained via personal
communication with colleagues, other professionals, and members of the
Deaf communities in which they work. The reporting of this type of in-
formation is vital to the documentation of contact phenomena, and that
documentation must begin somewhere. In the future, more systematic re-
ports are needed. My hope is that this book will encourage researchers
to undertake some of that investigation.
This volume only scratches the surface of the multifaceted topic of
language contact in the signed modality. We can learn much about the
human capacity for language by studying this topic, and we do not need
to look far to find examples of such contact. Further research in this area
will add to the wealth of knowledge that we have already gained by
studying languages that are produced without sound.
NOTES
1. This introduction has benefited from the comments of Ceil Lucas and
Richard P. Meier. I would like to thank them for their suggestions. Any misinter-
pretations of the literature and omissions are, of course, my own.
2. Sofinski (2002) also describes contact between ASL and English by ad-
dressing the way in which the sign production of interpreters contains features of
both languages when they are transliterating. He suggests that signers do not ac-
tually shift between languages but rather that mouth and manual-channel artic-
ulations guide the user’s perception of the production.
3. Cued Speech is a way to make spoken language visible through the use
of manual cues articulated by the cue-er’s hands.
4. Even a “nonagreement analysis” of verbs in sign languages might sug-
gest that sign language verbs reliably point to their objects more often than to
their subjects.
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Part 1 Contact in a Trilingual

Setting
Māori Signs: The Construction of Indigenous
Deaf Identity in New Zealand Sign Language
Rachel Locker McKee, David McKee, Kirsten Smiler,

and Karen Pointon
The assertion of Deaf cultural identity, minority rights and indigenous

self-determination in recent decades has created a platform from which
Deaf people of ethnic minority family heritage have begun to voice their
multilayered experiences of cultural socialization and identity (Ahmad
et al. 1998; Foster and Kinuthia 2003; Humphries 1993; McKay-Cody
1998/1999; Morales-López et al. 2002; Parasnis 1996; Paris and Wood
2002). In those places where an indigenous minority is engaged in cul-
tural revitalization (e.g., Māori in New Zealand, Catalán in Spain,
Navajo in North America), a zone of contact exists between the respec-
tive empowerment agendas of hearing and Deaf members of that minor-
ity. These agendas, in which the validation of a minority language plays
both instrumental and symbolic roles, may converge in some respects
and compete in others, causing Deaf individuals’ sense of allegiance to
fluctuate between Deaf and non-Deaf constructions of ethnic identity.
Brentari comments from a linguistic point of view that, “(b)ecause cul-
tural identity and empowerment in Deaf communities are primarily
expressed through the language, the status of foreign material in sign
language becomes very important” (2001a, xii). In a multilingual con-
text, the processes and outcomes of spoken–signed language contact are
intertwined with the representation of identity through language use.
Māori Deaf people (hereafter MD)1 in contemporary New Zealand
(NZ) are situated in a context of trilingual, tricultural contact, and some
are responding by constructing a distinct indigenous identity within the
New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) community through the develop-
ment and promotion of Māori signs. Unlike North America or Australia,
there is no tradition of manual signs used by hearing Māori people as an
alternate or complementary form of verbal communication. “Māori
signs” (hereafter MS) that express Māori cultural reference in NZSL
31
have recently developed in response to cultural exchange with non-Deaf

Māori and, we contend, have also been appropriated by MD to symbol-
ically enact consciousness of indigenous identity. This chapter describes the
processes and outcomes of a contemporary period of borrowing from the
Māori language into NZSL and proposes that, from a linguistic perspec-
tive, the result is a lexicon within NZSL rather than a separate variety of
NZSL, as is sometimes implied by communities of interest in the discourse
around MS. We also explore sociopolitical dimensions of ownership of this
lexicon and its symbolic role in the mediation of MD identity in a zone of
contact between Māori and Deaf decolonization agendas.2
METHOD AND DATA
This study is informed by lexical data and interviews that are back-
grounded by the researchers’ participant-observation in the New
Zealand Deaf community over a twenty-year period. The first data
source consulted is the lexicographical database of the Dictionary of
New Zealand Sign Language (Kennedy et al. 1997), which was supple-
mented in 2003 by authors McKee and McKee through the collection of
eight hundred additional signs, including specifically those with Māori
reference. This chapter categorizes signs with Māori reference in the
NZSL lexicon as established native signs, neologisms, or semantic ex-
tensions of existing NZSL signs, according to aspects of their derivation
and form.
Second, sociohistorical data were sought through interviews with a
focus group of four MD informants, three of whom have led develop-
ments in MD identity politics and MS development over the past decade.
In addition, three hearing Māori individuals who have been closely in-
volved with MD as interpreters and educators during the same period
were interviewed about their perspective on contact between the lan-
guages of Māori and NZSL. Data provided by these informants provide
the basis for the description of historical developments, and quotes from
interviews are used to support our analysis of attitudes and beliefs.
Quotes from Deaf participants have been translated into English by au-
thors Pointon and R. McKee from videotaped interviews originally con-
ducted in NZSL. After collection and preliminary analysis of data for
this study, Māori authors Pointon and Smiler were present at the 2005
National Māori Deaf Hui conference, which was attended by approxi-
32 : mckee, mckee, smiler, and pointon

mately one hundred MD; at the hui they presented our preliminary
analysis for feedback and also observed the use and discussion of MS
during the conference, which inform our discussion later in this chapter.
Research in marginalized communities is especially sensitive to the im-
pact of the researchers’ identities and sociocultural practices. The au-
thors’ identities and relationships with the community of focus in this
study constitute a mix of emic and etic lenses through which the data are
interpreted (Patton 1990). McKee and McKee have been university
teachers and researchers in the NZSL community for more than two
decades and have been closely involved in the training of interpreters and
Deaf NZSL teachers. As a hearing Caucasian New Zealander, Rachel
McKee is a second-language interlocutor in hearing Māori and Deaf cul-
tural domains; David McKee, a middle-class American Deaf person flu-
ent in NZSL, has an insider/outsider perspective on the NZ Deaf com-
munity. Karen Pointon, MD collaborator and an NZSL teacher, brings
personal, historical experience in MD networks and has held national
leadership positions in the NZ Deaf community. Kirsten Smiler, a Māori
CODA, is the hearing daughter of a Deaf non-Māori parent and a hear-
ing Māori parent and grew up during a period of Māori renaissance and
emerging Deaf pride. Smiler completed her 2004 master’s thesis on the
way in which Māori and Deaf world socialization experiences shape MD
individuals’ sense of identity. All of the researchers have had previous in-
teraction with some or all of the research participants within Deaf com-
munity circles.
We acknowledge that presenting a case study of a recent and small-
scale sociolinguistic phenomenon carries a risk of overstating the impli-
cations of a situation that is still unfolding (Merriam 1998). On the other
hand, a case study can focus attention on a directly observable and cur-
rent language phenomenon, reveal how these indigenous Deaf people
confront specific challenges, and offer a wider understanding of their
particular experience (Shaw 1978). Our discussion of the Māori-NZSL
contact situation adopts the social constructionist premise that language
is used in particular ways “to construct, modify and maintain particular
social identities” (Holmes 2003). We contend that MS are evidence of
emerging linguistic practices and a consciousness among MD that reflect
their desire to address a perceived discontinuity between their linguistic
identity as NZSL users and their ethnic identity as Māori. Analysis of the
situated use of Māori signs in discourse to demonstrate this process at the
microlevel was outside the scope of this study; we aim here to analyze
M a–ori Signs : 33
the nature of the signs and the macrosocial factors surrounding their cre-
ation and use.
This chapter first outlines certain background factors relevant to the
interaction between communities of Māori speakers and NZSL users.
The second main section describes the various forms of MS found within
NZSL as outcomes of language contact. Finally, the third section focuses
on ideological positions around the creation, ownership, and naming of
MS. We also briefly discuss Deaf coinages in written Māori that explic-
itly construct MD identity.
MĀORI REFERENCE IN THE ESTABLISHED NZSL LEXICON
NZSL, the common language of the New Zealand Deaf community,

originated in residential school networks, which historically included
both Māori and Pākehā (the indigenous term for Caucasian New
Zealanders) students. In designing the first comprehensive dictionary of
NZSL in the early 1990s, researchers deliberately sought to include all
existing signs in NZSL representing Māori referents or concepts (other
than place names) by consultation with Māori members of the NZSL
community (Kennedy et al. 1997, x). It was considered important to
record the extent to which the lexicon of NZSL reflects Māori concepts
since they constitute a local feature that distinguishes NZSL from its
close relatives, Australian and British Sign Languages (Johnston 2000;
McKee and Kennedy 2000). Twenty-five signs with Māori primary
glosses (headwords) were recorded in the 1997 dictionary (see Table 1);
these signs were apparently in general usage in the Deaf community
rather than specific to MD. A follow-up project was undertaken in 2003,
at Victoria University of Wellington, to expand the dictionary database,
with the aim of documenting signs used by the oldest generation of sign-
ers, younger signers (particularly informal or colloquial terms), technical
signs, and signs with Māori reference that the researchers believed had
increased in number since the dictionary data were collected a decade
earlier (the reasons for which are outlined later).
Lexical and stylistic variation in NZSL linked to region and age has
been noted in previous research (Collins-Ahlgren 1989; Kennedy et al.
1997; McKee and McKee 2002), but there is no indication that Māori
signers’ use of NZSL varies systematically from that of non-Māori,
whose social networks and domains of language use substantially over-

lap. However, in order to determine whether patterned variation exists

at any level of linguistic structure, a current research project on sociolin-
guistic variation in NZSL1 includes Māori ethnicity as a variable.
SOCIOHISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE LANGUAGE

COMMUNITIES
Māori Population and Ethnic Identity
Māori comprise approximately 15 percent of the overall NZ popula-

tion (four million) and approximately 35 percent of the population
under fifteen years of age (Statistics New Zealand 2007). However, di-
agnostic data show that 43 percent of the children identified as deaf or
hearing impaired in 2005 were Māori (National Audiology Centre
2007). Calculations of the total NZSL community range between 4,500
and 7,700 (Dugdale 2000; Statistics New Zealand 2001); in light of re-
cent reanalysis of deaf demographics in comparable Western countries,
it is likely that these estimates are on the high side (cf. Johnston 2004).
Currently, no reliable figures on the Māori proportion of the NZSL
community are available. While diagnostic data suggest that Māori are
overrepresented, the proportion cannot be directly extrapolated since
the aggregate figure of 39 percent includes children with mild and
moderate hearing impairment who may not necessarily become NZSL
users.
Contemporary Māori ethnic identity is a contestable concept.
Commentators generally concur that it can be constructed on a range of
potential factors that include knowledge of one’s tribal genealogy and
customs, participation in Māori domains and networks, affiliation with
Māori political goals, and speaking Te Reo Māori (TRM) and/or a Māori
variety of English (Durie 1997, 2001; Holmes 1997).3 Recent estimates
of the proportion of Māori people who are proficient in TRM range be-
tween 20 and 42 percent (Benton 2001, Statistics New Zealand 2002).
Native speakers of the older generation are becoming rare, and surveys
indicate that the transmission and survival of the language remains pre-
carious despite concerted retention efforts (Benton 2001; Boyce 2005).
1. http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/research/deafstudies/DSRU%20site/NZSL
%20variation/variation%20project.aspx.
Demographic information shows that more than half of those who

identify as ethnic Māori have mixed biological heritage and non-Māori
partners (Callister 2004; Chapple 2000). Contemporary Māori ethnicity
is thus primarily socially and contextually defined; Māori writer O’Regan
(2001, 88), for example, emphasizes that the transmission and expression
of indigenous identity is neither straightforward nor static: “The reality is
that a person or group may form a web of interwoven identities with
corresponding interwoven boundaries. . . . Plural cultural identities are a
living reality for many of the world’s indigenous populations.” This is
salient to MD who can potentially claim Māori (and usually Pākehā) bio-
logical heritage, as well as Deaf social heritage. By their own account, so-
cialization into Deaf-world identity tends to be the most linguistically and
politically accessible to MD (Dugdale 2000; McKee 2001; Smiler 2004).
Māori Cultural Renaissance and the Development of Māori

Deaf Pride
In some countries, the legal protection of an indigenous language has

created a sociopolitical climate conducive to subsequent recognition of
the signed language of a national or regional Deaf community, as for ex-
ample in Catalonia (Morales-López et al. 2002), Finland (Hoyer 2004),
and Ireland (Leeson and Grehan 2004). The past three decades have
been a period of cultural renaissance for Māori, during which revitaliza-
tion of the language has been central to an empowerment agenda known
indigenously as tino rangatiratanga (“self-determination/sovereignty”)
(Spolsky 2005). Māori achieved official language status in 1987, while
English is the de facto language in most domains of NZ life. We believe
that societal acknowledgment of indigenous biculturalism has indirectly
supported the emergence of Deaf cultural consciousness and acceptance
of NZSL from the mid-1980s, which were spurred by the overseas Deaf
Pride movement and linguistic research on sign languages (Dugdale
2001a; McKee 2001). In 2006 NZSL was recognized as an official lan-
guage in legislation modeled on the Māori Language Act, which grants
official status, protection, and the right to use it in legal settings (New
Zealand Sign Language Bill; Māori Language Act 1987, 176). The NZSL
Act, however, has no resources or enforceable obligations attached to it
beyond provision of interpretation in court settings.
Although Māori and Pākehā Deaf are socialized in the same schools,
and coparticipate in all other Deaf community domains such as sports,
political advocacy, clubs, and marriage, MD perceive that their indige-

nous identity is not necessarily positively acknowledged within the Deaf

community and that their Deaf identity is not understood in the Māori
world (AKO Ltd. 1995; Dugdale 2000; Smiler 2004). Generally speaking,
MD have had restricted access to the activities and benefits of the Tino
Rangatiratanga movement and language regeneration efforts that gained
momentum in the 1970s. By the early1990s some hearing Māori in the ed-
ucation and welfare sectors recognized the marginalized position of MD,
who had recently begun to articulate their Deaf cultural identity through
the use of NZSL interpreters in Māori contexts. A report on the develop-
ment needs of MD in 1995 observed that “Deaf Māori suffer on two lev-
els because of their dual status of being both Deaf and Māori. To be able
to fully exercise their tino rangatiratanga there must be acknowledgement
of this dual status and changes put in place to enable Deaf Māori to ful-
fill their aspirations in both the Māori and the Deaf communities where
their two cultures will be recognised and validated” (AKO Ltd. 1995, 39).
Acknowledgment of NZSL, opportunities to use it as a medium of
education, and the training of some Māori-speaking NZSL interpreters
since the mid-1990s have enabled MD to participate more in Māori do-
mains. This contact has stimulated aspirations for stronger Māori con-
sciousness, leadership capacity, and the recognition of Māori identity
within the Deaf community (Dugdale 2001; Smiler 2004). Reflecting a
wider societal push for political partnership with Māori, Māori partici-
pation in national Deaf politics has been strengthened through elected
representation and specially created Māori development roles in the Deaf
Association of New Zealand (Dugdale 2001a; Jaffe 1992).
According to our informants, intensified contact between TRM and
NZSL speakers and the beginning of contemporary MD collective con-
sciousness dates to 1991, when a group of MD formally came together
to learn and perform a Māori ceremonial welcome at New Zealand’s first
“Deaf View” conference. This activity, led by a hearing tutor (who was
interviewed for this study) under the auspices of the Kelston Deaf
Education Centre in Auckland, progressed into ongoing cultural activi-
ties for MD students at the school, in which MD adults also enthusiasti-
cally participated. This new site of activity soon involved other hearing
Māori and led to an informal network of MD, which has since organized
two national hui and regional workshops focused on fostering Māori
cultural knowledge and pride.
Another key player in the development of MS has been a Māori adult
education institution that began employing MD tutors in 1996 to teach
NZSL to hearing Māori students, who were enrolled mainly to learn

TRM. Due to a staff member having a Deaf family member, this institu-
tion formed an agenda to engage MD in cultural development activities,
develop MS as a bridge between the two cultures, and encourage Māori
students to undertake further training as sign language interpreters.
Trilingual interpreters, though few in number, have been important
agents of linguistic and political change in MD circles by facilitating par-
ticipation in Māori cultural settings. The practice of interpreting between
TRM and NZSL began on an amateur basis in the early 1990s, and the
first Māori-speaking sign language interpreter qualified in 1995 with the
generic English-NZSL qualification (no Māori-specific training or quali-
fication is available at present). Currently there are three Māori individ-
uals who are recognized as skilled trilingual interpreters able to work in
a full range of Māori contexts, and another three who have undertaken
sign language interpreter training but are considered (by our informants)
to be novices who are still developing their language and interpretation
skills in TRM and/or NZSL. None of these trilingual interpreters have
an immediate Deaf family member (i.e., none are native signers), and
only one is a native speaker of TRM. The two senior trilingual inter-
preters whom we interviewed described the motivation of Māori inter-
preters as a desire to empower and increase opportunities for MD, often
motivated by personal links with a Deaf person. From that point, they
found a path into the Deaf community and learning NZSL and thus re-
alized the need to further develop whatever TRM skills they had pos-
sessed when they started out as interpreters.
Hearing and Deaf Māori engaged in these recent zones of cultural ex-
change have brought to bear their own goals, understandings of deaf-
ness, and cultural resources, all of which have resulted in both synergies
and tensions. Language has been at the nexus of these sites of contact,
where the fundamental challenge has been to mediate Māori culture —
and Deaf people’s appropriation of this knowledge — through NZSL. In
most instances, Deaf people were immersed in a hearing Māori context,
while in some situations, hearing Māori also experienced immersion in
Deaf contexts. These dynamics are discussed further in the section on
ideologies and ownership of MS.
Contact between Te Reo Māori and New Zealand English
The extent of borrowing of Māori lexical items into New Zealand

English (NZE) is relevant background to contact between TRM and

NZSL. It has been said that “the most unmistakably New Zealand part
of NZE is its Māori element” (Deverson 1991, 18). Macalister (2005) re-
ports that approximately one thousand Māori words are established
loans in NZE (about six out of every thousand words that are written or
spoken), of which many are proper nouns. Lexical borrowing in both di-
rections between the two languages has occurred since colonization in
the early 1800s. However, as British settlers established political hege-
mony in the second half of the nineteenth century, cultural assimilation
of Māori led to dramatic attrition of the Māori language and a drop in
bilingualism (Spolsky 2005).
During the early colonial period, Māori words (primarily nouns) were
initially borrowed into NZE to refer to indigenous places, flora, fauna,
artifacts, and practices, and, as nationhood progressed, to signify na-
tional identity (e.g., christening ships and racehorses with Māori names)
(Macalister 2005). Regeneration of the Māori language and the impact
of the Tino Rangatiratanga movement since the late 1970s have led to a
wider range of Māori loanwords in NZE, particularly to refer to con-
cepts of Māori social culture, as these have gained prominence in the po-
litical and social discourse of the contemporary decolonization agenda
(ibid.).
The extent to which individual NZE speakers use Māori loans varies,
reflecting social dimensions of identity, attitude, audience, as well as sit-
uational and contextual factors (Macalister 2003). Between Māori
speakers of NZE, code switching is used to signal Māori cultural affilia-
tion; grammatical features (e.g., vernacular verb forms, prosodic aspects)
and discourse sequences (e.g., greetings) also mark in-group English used
by Māori people (Holmes 1997; Bell 2000).
THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Language as an Instrument of Ethnolinguistic Identity
The sociolinguistic situation of Māori Deaf and the development of

MS are considered here within a poststructuralist framework that views
language as a form of symbolic cultural capital (Bourdieu 1991) and as
a site of identity construction (Weedon 1987). Language is central to
constructing ethnolinguistic identity. The use of a minority language is a
vehicle for knowing and participating in the heritage culture; it also per-
forms the affective function of symbolically enacting cultural identity
and pride (Fishman 1989). Conscious and unconscious language behav-

ior such as code switching into a minority language encodes aspects of
personal identity and social affiliation or distance (Holmes 2001; Milroy
1989).
For Deaf ethnic minority individuals though, the linguistic enactment
of plural cultural identity can be problematic in either the Deaf world or
the hearing world for several reasons. First, deafness constrains the spon-
taneous acquisition of a minority spoken language in home and commu-
nity settings (Gerner de García 1995); thus cultural knowledge encoded
in that language is often inaccessible. Moreover, without knowledge of
the heritage culture language, the use of code switching as a potential sig-
nifier of dual ethnic identity is not an option. The invisibility of minor-
ity languages and ethnic role models in deaf education particularly and
in mainstream society generally further contributes to Deaf minority in-
dividuals’ alienation from the heritage culture and language of their
hearing family (Aramburo 1989; Davis and Supalla 1995; Dively 2001;
Herring-Wright 1999). These factors apply to the situation of MD, who
generally have minimal understanding of TRM and superficial access to
Māori cultural domains. As Deaf people, they also face potential preju-
dice with regard to their use of NZSL in both Māori and Pākehā hearing
communities. Constructing an ethnolinguistic identity as both Māori and
Deaf is thus a challenging journey.
Traditionally, the cultural knowledge underpinning Māori identity is
transmitted orally through language arts, including oratory, recitation,
and song, which generally exclude Deaf participation. Other contempo-
rary cultural domains such as Māori-dominated sporting codes, Māori
television, and TRM-medium schools offer potential new avenues of
identity in which MD are participating, although access to meaningful
engagement in these is still limited for most Deaf individuals (the main
exception being sports). Accomplishment in the manual and performing
arts (e.g., wood carving, flax weaving, action songs), which are visually
and kinesthetically based, is a source of ethnic pride that is available to
some MD. By contrast, the accessibility of NZSL and the common so-
ciopolitical experiences of deafness (i.e., linguistic exclusion, powerless-
ness, camaraderie with Deaf peers, shared schooling) lead to strong cul-
tural affiliation with the Deaf world. Smiler (2004) reports that MD
describe plural, fluid identities, facets of which are foregrounded differ-
ently through social interaction in Māori and Deaf cultural environ-
ments, respectively. Most participants in that study felt linguistically and

socially Deaf but believed that being Māori was also integral to their per-
sonal identity, even if their depth of enculturation into the Māori world
was limited.
The following excerpt from a MD participant in our study describes
her sense of both identification with and exclusion from Māori culture
while growing up in a hearing family. Her account is representative of
other participants’ experiences: “My father, my older brother and his son
speak Māori, but my Mum [Pākehā] knew only a little, and my sister and
me only a bit. I only know the Māori numbers. I’m not strong with [any]
spoken language, but I have a strong feeling of Māori identity. . . . When
I was growing up, I didn’t know the Māori protocols at the marae, so I
learned to watch and copy what people around me were doing, like tak-
ing off my shoes before going inside.”4
This informant, who had mixed parentage, described trying to nego-
tiate an identity while moving between Pākehā, Māori, and Deaf con-
texts:
My mother is Pākehā, and at home it was different than on the marae.

It was confusing! I wasn’t frustrated, but I just didn’t know why it was
different. . . . I had the same communication breakdowns whether
people spoke English or Māori. I would think “I am Māori, and I am
also Pākehā.” But I still couldn’t make sense of what I am. I was al-
ways mixed up. People used to ask “Are you Māori?” I’d reply “Yes!”
and “Can you speak?” I’d say, “No! I don’t have to. I’ve been Deaf all
my life.” When I moved to a deaf school for one and a half years, I
picked up NZSL, and I could communicate easily with everyone.
Then I went back to a hearing high school. There was a marae there,
and I was amazed to be taught about Māori culture by a hearing per-
son. She would write Māori words and also the English translation on
the board. I saw two different languages, but I didn’t know what they
meant. . . . I accept both Māori and Pākehā sides . . . but spoken lan-
guage, it’s not for me!
Although embracing her dual Māori-Pākehā heritage, this participant’s

identity is linguistically anchored in being Deaf. She expresses a sense of
vulnerability about her identity as defined by others’ language criteria in
hearing contexts, either Pākehā or Māori. Neither TRM nor English af-
forded accessible routes to cultural identity for her as a Māori Deaf person,
while her NZSL socialization was removed from the Māori aspects of her
home background. It is this disjunction between the cultural-linguistic
contexts in which they interact that some MD have sought to address by

developing new forms of the Māori-NZSL contact language while also in-
voking a sense of new group membership (cf. Ting-Toomey 1999).
Borrowing as an Outcome of Language Contact
We apply Thomason and Kaufman’s (1988, 37) definition of “bor-

rowing” to the development of MS: “The incorporation of foreign fea-
tures into a group’s native language by speakers of that language: the
native language is maintained but is changed by the addition of the in-
corporated features.” The native language in this case is NZSL. By “na-
tive” we mean endemic to the NZ Deaf community rather than neces-
sarily indigenous since a large proportion of the lexicon is historically
related to British Sign Language (McKee and Kennedy 2000). Lexical
borrowing generally occurs when speakers in contact with another lan-
guage perceive a gap or a need for reference to new or foreign concepts
in their first language; the outcome is to expand the lexicon or to create
substitutes for existing words (Haugen 1938/1972; Thomason and
Kaufman 1988). The growth of signs with Māori reference in the NZSL
lexicon represents semantic borrowing into NZSL, arising from contact
between TRM and NZSL and mediated through signed, spoken, and
written modalities.
“Semantic importation” (Haugen 1950/1972a) of spoken lexicon into
signed languages exhibits particular features arising from the modality
differences; borrowing generally occurs through mechanisms such as
fingerspelling, mouthing (unvoiced articulation of a spoken word with or
without a manual sign), initialized sign formations, and loan translation
(Brentari 2001b). Foreign forms that combine structural elements from
two languages may be described as hybrids. In NZE, “Māoridom” is an
example (Macalister 2005), while initialized signs and the coarticulation
of mouthing with a manual sign to specify meaning are forms of hybrid
loans commonly found in sign languages, including NZSL (e.g., Boyes
Braem 2001; Miller 2001; Machabée 1995).
Haugen (1950/1972b, 75) distinguishes “semantic loans” in which
the scope of an existing lexeme is extended to express a foreign meaning
(e.g., “flax” in NZE, which has altered its original English sense to now
refer to a related but different indigenous New Zealand plant; Macalister
2003) from “loan translations,” in which the native morpheme structure
is approximated by substituting morphemes from the host language (e.g.,

“dining hall” in NZE, which approximates the Māori “whare/kai,” or in

NZSL, the compound loan baby sit, derived from English “baby-
sit”). We use the term “semantic loan” to characterize NZSL signs whose
semantic scope has been extended to express a Māori meaning due to re-
cent Deaf contact with TRM.
Two social preconditions for borrowing between languages are ex-
tended social contact and a degree of bilingualism in speakers
(Thomason and Kaufman 1988, 47). In language contact situations,
bilingual individuals are instrumental in introducing new usages and
coinages from a second language to monolingual speakers who would
not otherwise have access to them (Bynon 1977). An important factor
in TRM-NZSL contact is the emergence of bilingual individuals and of
domains in which the two languages are in use by both Deaf and hear-
ing participants. Māori sign language interpreters and other hearing
Māori with NZSL skills have in some instances been key agents of mo-
tivating, coining, and disseminating contact forms. Strang (1970, 28)
points out that merely exposure to a second language resulting in indi-
rect experience of that language rather than actual bilingualism can be
sufficient to prompt lexical borrowing. This describes the circumstances
of MD themselves, who have created contact sign forms as a result of
indirect exposure to TRM rather than through direct use of it as bilin-
guals.
Finally, of relevance to this situation is the premise that the “need” to
borrow foreign words is not solely about conveying referential meaning
but may be equally about the desire to signal shifts in attitude and iden-
tity (Poplack et al. 1988). Macalister (2003, 276–79) has identified six
possible linguistic and social factors that motivate lexical borrowing
from Māori into NZE (from a subordinate to a dominant language): (1)
economy of expression; (2) expression of cultural or national identity;
(3) displaying empathy with the other language and/or culture; (4) mak-
ing an impact on an audience; (5) cultural reference to aspects of foreign
culture; and (6) clarity and precision of meaning (particularly for ab-
stract concepts). Macalister (ibid., 280) comments that the “operation of
these motivations generally needs to be inferred, as definite evidence is
unlikely to be available.” Our data suggest that these motivations feature
in the expansion and use of MS in the NZSL lexicon, as MD have per-
ceived a dual need for linguistic reference to cultural concepts and to sig-
nify their cultural identity.
LINGUISTIC OUTCOMES OF CONTACT BETWEEN TE REO MĀORI

AND NZSL
The Established Lexicon
The NZSL lexicon contains a few established signs with Māori refer-
ence that are of long-standing use in NZSL. Table 1 lists the twenty-five
NZSL signs that encode Māori reference, as recorded in the 1997
Dictionary of New Zealand Sign Language (Kennedy et al.).5 Their der-
ivation can be categorized as (1) “native” (Battison 1978), that is, hav-
ing an etymology internal to NZSL structure and arising through inter-
action over time in the NZSL community (the derivation of most of these
is motivated by visible aspects of Māori culture, such as appearance, ac-
tions, objects; see Figures 1–4); (2) “semantic loan” of an existing NZSL
sign meaning by the articulation of a Māori mouth pattern to specify
Māori reference, such as kai/food and wharenui/hall; and (3) “loan
translation,” that is, structural rendering of the Māori source elements
using NZSL morphemes, such as fs-kr for Kōhanga Reo.
We identified three signs for Māori words beginning with m that have
initialized variants (Māori, marae, and moko) coined in the 1980s, when
Signed English was used in deaf education with the aim of manually rep-
resenting each spoken or written word. At this time, a number of hy-
bridized signs (Brentari and Padden 2001) were contrived in Australasian
Signed English by adding BSL or ASL fingerspelling handshapes to exist-
ing lexemes to represent the first letter of a spoken word equivalent.
Initialized signs with Māori reference originating in this period are now
figure 1. māori figure 2. figure 3. haka figure 4. poi

(“indigenous pākehā (“fierce dance”) (“soft balls
people”) (“Caucasian”) twirled on string
in action songs”)

table 1. Māori Concepts Listed as Headwords in the Dictionary of New

Zealand Sign Language (Kennedy et al. 1997)
Status of Sign
Māori N native NZSL sign
Headword SL semantic loan
(Number LT loan translation
of Variants) English Translation SE Signed English (influence)
haka (3) fierce rhythmic dance N, N, N

hāngi (2) Earth pit oven N, N
hongi Māori greeting by N
touching noses
iwi (2) tribe SL (1. area, 2. group)
kai food SL (food)
kaumātua male elder N
kina spiny sea egg N
kiwi (2) 1. flightless bird N, N
2. New Zealander
koha donation, contribution N
kōhanga reo Māori language preschool LT (fs-kr)
kūmara (2) native sweet potato N, N
Māori (3) indigenous people of NZ N, N, N (SE influence:
M handshape)
marae (2) traditional meeting N, N (SE influence:
compound M handshape)
moko (2) facial tattoo N, N (SE influence:
M handshape)
Pākehā (3) non-Māori Caucasian N, N, N
New Zealander
pāua abalone N
piupiu flax skirt N
poi soft ball twirled on string N
in action songs
rangatira chief N
tangi Māori funeral SL (funeral)
tiki Māori carved N
pendant/symbol
waka canoe N
whakairo Māori carving N
whānau family SL (family)
wharenui Māori meeting house SL (hall)
rejected by some MD as “hearing” signs, although they are still used in

the Deaf community.
Table 1 does not include Māori place names, which tend to be derived
according to the NZSL system of name signs rather than being specifi-
cally influenced by their Māori origin.
Compared to the number of established Māori loans within NZE,
Māori referents established in the NZSL lexicon are few, for the follow-
ing reasons:
1. Contact between spoken Māori and NZSL is restricted compared

to contact between spoken Māori and spoken English since Deaf
people do not have aural exposure to Māori words that are fa-
miliar to the hearing community. Moreover, it is rare for Deaf
people to acquire oracy or literacy in Māori (as a basis for code
switching and borrowing) in either community or school settings.
2. Direct or unassimilated borrowing of Māori words into NZSL is
unlikely since the language modalities are different and phono-
logical integration is unlikely (except through mouthing, which
occurs to some extent).
3. Concepts that are expressed in NZE by Māori loanwords can be
independently represented in NZSL by a native form with equiv-
alent meaning (e.g., the bird known in NZE by its Māori name,
tui, is named in NZSL by descriptive reference to its plumage) or
translated by an existing sign (e.g., the concept tangi (“Māori
wake/funeral”) is usually expressed by the NZSL sign meaning
“bury/funeral”).
4. Deaf NZSL users have less linguistic access to the sociopolitical
forces that drive change in contact language behavior in NZE,
such as Pākehā speakers using Māori loanwords and accurate pro-
nunciation to encode their bicultural sensitivity or Māori speakers
of NZE using code mixing to signal ethnic identity and solidarity.
New Borrowings Motivated by Interaction in Māori Domains
Since the advent of an interpreting service in 1985 and Deaf advocacy

over the last two decades in New Zealand, MD have increasingly as-
serted their right to access Māori contexts (in which TRM and English
coexist), such as marae-based community events and the Māori land
court (for tribal land claims), as well as other settings such as formal

education and Māori television. Through our involvement in the teach-

ing of NZSL since 1992, we have observed growing interest among hear-
ing Māori in learning NZSL, as also described by our interviewees (one
of whom even suggested a natural affinity between speaking Māori and
NZSL due to their grammatical differences from English and also Māori
familiarity with the use of symbolic hand gestures in performing arts
such as action songs). As MD have entered Māori domains and hearing
Māori have entered Deaf domains seeking a cultural connection, pres-
sure for vocabulary expansion in NZSL has occurred. Discourse in
Māori contexts, whether communication is in TRM or in English with
code mixing, presents a need for signs to represent culturally significant
referents such as proper nouns, abstract cultural concepts, and formulaic
language (such as greetings and elements of formal oratory) not previ-
ously used in NZSL discourse domains.
Three main processes have emerged from the Māori-NZSL interface:
1. Deaf-hearing negotiation of vocabulary in which hearing Māori

with or without knowledge of NZSL have taught Māori cultural
concepts and practices to MD. Communication in these situations
has been mediated through a mix of Signed English, gesture, spo-
ken English, spoken Māori used by hearing participants, and
NZSL with some spoken English used by Deaf participants. As
MD have encountered new Māori cultural experiences and con-
cepts, sign equivalents have been negotiated. A hearing Māori
tutor who was the first person to teach aspects of Māori culture to
the MD group formed in 1991 describes the process that moti-
vated new coinages:
[A MD man] started talking to me about organizing a hāngi . . .

and he was going like this [gestures grasping the throat; see Figure
12], and I said “I don’t understand,” and it was the sign hang.
And I said there was a need to explore ringa a tohu [handsigns].
And I kept really quiet about it right up til then because I wasn’t
comfortable about being able to support a group of people to be
able to do that because they needed the knowledge, the deep
meanings of the words of what Māori means and not just to put
signs to it because it means something. So we spoke about
kaumātua [male elder] ‘cause they were signing “older” but not
the essence or heart of an elder. So when they talk kaumātua now
they basically have two signs for it [see Figure 9]. I explained the
meaning of the word, and they’d have a talk about it, and they
would develop a sign.
The MD participant mentioned in the preceding account as-
serted that in this context it was they, the Deaf people, who cre-
ated signs based on their new understanding: “[The hearing tutor]
mainly taught Māori action songs to Deaf children; he did not
teach signs. I learnt Māori words and created signs for them.”
According to MD participants, the first of these neologisms
were kaumātua (male elder), kuia (“female elder”), marae
(“tribal/community meeting compound”), aroha (“compassion/
love”), and iwi (“tribe”). These are core cultural referents in ex-
pressing the relatedness of people, places, and emotions within a
Māori worldview; they are frequently used in Māori discourse (in
either NZE or Māori).
2. Interpreter-mediated communication between Māori, NZSL, and

English in which trilingual interpreters use NZSL and MS neolo-
gisms to convey Māori meaning within an NZSL frame of reference.
A Māori interpreter interviewed in this study commented on the lin-
guistic and conceptual challenges of simultaneously interpreting
from TRM into NZSL, particularly in “culturally rich” (Taylor
1993) texts: “How do you talk about ‘te ao wairua’ [the spiritual
world] when they have no concept? It’s not ‘heaven’ . . . we’re not
talking about any Christian philosophy, and trying to give them an
understanding all within the translation period that you’ve got. . . .
All you can do is give a reduced version of the overall ideas.”
Our interviewees, both Deaf and hearing, indicated that in this
process of cultural mediation, trained Māori interpreters have been
conservative about coining new signs or establishing fixed transla-
tions, preferring to accept that, for the moment, there will be re-
strictions on achieving conceptual equivalence, as this interpreter
explains: “There’s been a need to develop some concepts . . . and
they haven’t been nutted [worked] out. . . . I mean MD have heard
some of those concepts. . . . They use a literal translation, but they
still don’t have the understanding of the concept. So in the mean-
time, as interpreters, we just carry on using the literal translation
. . . until MD are at a point where they develop a sign that’s more
appropriate.”

3. Coinage of neologisms by hearing Māori, with the aim of encod-

ing Māori concepts. This has taken place in learning situations
that have involved a minority of Deaf participants and a majority
of hearing NZSL learners engaged in Māori-based cultural activi-
ties. Neologisms were coined where hearing (and often Deaf) par-
ticipants perceived a gap in the NZSL vocabulary for rendering
Māori concepts into signs (e.g., formulaic phrases in oratory and
referents such as deities) or a need to revise NZSL signs that
presently convey Māori reference in a form that is conceptually
unacceptable to hearing Māori. A Māori interpreter who observed
these endeavors during the mid-1990s explained: “[Māori educa-
tors] saw the need for Māori hearing who could sign and a need
for Māori Deaf to have more conceptually appropriate signs than
the ones that were currently being used.”
Some hearing-devised signs reveal an assumption that reference in MS

(or NZSL generally) should coincide with Māori representations of
meaning; a Māori interpreter describes the perspective of a Māori edu-
cation organization that advocated the development of MS:
The goal was “Māori Sign Language,” pretty much to try to get Māori
Deaf more of an understanding of Māori signs. Like, the signs that
they were using were the English signs. Particularly place names at the
time. They were trying to get Māori Deaf to understand what the
actual meaning of the word was. . . . Getting Māori Deaf to under-
stand that those place names have a history and they have a meaning,
so those signs that you’re actually using, even though they’re the Deaf
signs that you’re used to . . . getting them to try and match the history
of that word with the [new] sign.
An example is a coinage for the suburb named Papatoetoe, which

comprises the morphemes papa (earth/area) plus toetoe (pampas grass).
As both the written word and NZE pronunciation appear to refer to
“toe,” the established NZSL sign is derived from “visual homonymy”
(Miller 2001) as follows: fs-p toe toe (pointing at the signer’s feet).
This sign follows norms for the structure of NZSL name signs based on
elements of description, initials, or semantic translation of an English lip
pattern or orthography (McKee and McKee 2000). The contrived MS
replacement for Papatoetoe is a loan translation of the two Māori mor-
phemes — a compound of land 2h cl: “bent index fingers” (intended
to represent pampas grass). Our informants report that this neologism

has not been adopted by the local Deaf community and requires expla-
nation when used.
The idea that signs should coincide with spoken Māori form, as well
as meaning, was also evident. Hearing Māori made some attempt to de-
vise a manual code for elements of spoken Māori, which foundered
quickly due to Deaf people’s distaste for their earlier experience of Signed
English in schools, and the outspoken discouragement of Māori trilin-
gual interpreters, one of whom recalls the following:
[Hearing Māori educators] were looking at sign language following a

Māori grammatical word order. . . . They wanted to develop a specific
sign for the [causative] prefix whaka, so if it was whakapapa, then
it would be this “developed” sign for whaka, and then whatever.
Whakarongo would no longer just be listen. It would be this whaka
plus hear. . . . It was the same idea as Signed English: It was based on
that same concept that sign language isn’t complete, that it’s a repre-
sentation of a spoken language. . . . So there was a lot of debating over
that. . . . I battled with them for years!
Hearing-initiated coinages have thus had some influence on the develop-

ment of MS but have tended to be the most contentious of the neologisms.
Forms of Recent Borrowings
The folk term “Māori signs” refers to signs that have Māori reference,
some of which have been coined by MD for use in Māori contexts.
Within the signs identified and demonstrated by informants as MS, four
types of derivational processes were identified; the number and function
of the signs in each of these categories is summarized in Table 2:
1. Established native or other signs in the NZSL lexicon with Māori

reference, as previously described and listed in Table 1.
2. Semantic loans (i.e., signs in the established NZSL lexicon that
have been appropriated as MS to express Māori reference by the
addition of Māori mouthing, as in Figures 5–8). These forms can
be described as hybrids in the sense that the “foreign” feature of
a Māori lip pattern is added to an existing sign to distinguish a
Māori sense from other potential meanings of the manual sign.
Semantic loans demonstrated to us by MD informants indi-
cated that a Māori meaning and mouth pattern have been con-

figure 5. pōwhiri figure 6. tangi figure 7. waiata

(“welcome”) (“funeral/to bury”) (“song/to sing”)
1 figure 8. whānau (“family”)
sciously grafted onto an existing sign as MD have acquired

knowledge of TRM vocabulary. One participant, for example,
produced the NZSL sign family mouthing whānau (“family”)
as an example of a “new” MS for whānau. A similar kind of ex-
ample is the NZSL sign sea mouthing moana (“ocean, sea”).
This form of borrowing or code switching echoes Boyes Braem’s
(2001, 111) finding in Swiss German Sign Language that
“mouthings are a device for the derivation of related, new lexical
items.” In this case it is not necessarily the semantic content that
is new but the foreign code from which the mouthing feature is
borrowed, which in general NZSL usage would be English.
A similar speech-sign contact feature is described for the
Swedish Deaf minority in Finland, for whom code switching from
Finnish to Swedish mouthing coarticulated with common manual
signs encodes Swedish semantic reference, as well as signaling
Finnish-Swedish identity (Hoyer 2004). In northern Wales, where
Welsh-medium schooling has created a contact environment be-
tween spoken/written Welsh and Welsh BSL signers, Welsh mouth
patterns are becoming associated with BSL signs as a marker of a
Welsh variety of BSL, particularly by younger Deaf people (Julie
Watkins, pers. comm., November 15, 2005).
figure 9. kaumātua figure 10. aroha figure 11. iwi

(“respected male elder”) (“love, compassion”) (“tribe/tribal area”)
Derivation: aroha Derivation: emotion Derivation: area, as if
senior heart loc on a map
3. Neologisms, which are new signs coined to express Māori cultural

concepts, usually fill a lexical gap. In some cases, these are visu-
ally motivated, while others recombine existing morphemes of
NZSL or a native morpheme with a newly created or contrived
element. One interesting example is kaumātua, which has been
recoined as a neologism combining native and contrived mor-
phemes. The sign recorded for this headword in the 1997 dictionary
is a semantic extension of the sign meaning “senior” in NZSL, but
data collected in 2003 have revealed a new sign, in which the in-
vented morpheme aroha (love, esteem) (Figure 10) has been pre-
fixed to senior to express a cultural value of esteem for elders.
This neologism reflects a refinement of the concept through fur-
ther exchanges with hearing Māori. Some neologisms are already
being displaced by subsequent ones; for example, iwi/tribe (Figure
11) now coexists with another variant observed since collecting
the 2003 data reported here.
4. Substitutions are a subgroup of neologisms that have been coined
to replace established signs perceived as conceptually inadequate
or culturally inappropriate, mainly by hearing Māori learners of
NZSL. According to our informants, most of these revised signs
are place names that have been constructed from existing NZSL
morphemes; some nonnative coinages have been modified by Deaf
people within a short period of use, as one MD informant com-
mented: “Over time, the initial signs for Māori concepts were
adapted to look and feel more natural to NZSL signers.”
Deaf and hearing participants cited hāngi (“food cooked in an earth

pit oven”) as one of the first established NZSL signs to be reevaluated as

figure 12. old hāngi Derivation: to figure 13. new hāngi Derivation:
hang pit in the ground
conceptually inaccurate and deliberately revised. As mentioned in an ear-

lier quote, this was conventionally expressed in NZSL by a visual hom-
onym meaning “to hang by the neck” (see Figure 12), deriving from
“hang(i)” in the written form and from the Pākehā pronunciation of the
word with a short /a/ vowel, as in “hang.” This sign provoked an adverse
reaction from hearing Māori learners of NZSL due to its unpleasant and
semantically irrelevant connotations. A MD participant explained that at
the first hui for MD with hearing Māori cultural tutors in the mid-1990s,
there was much discussion about certain signs that seemed conceptually
inappropriate from a hearing Māori perspective. hāngi was the sign that
created awareness among MD about the possibility of revising a con-
ventional form-meaning relationship and rejecting a sign that was
patently Deaf, but not Māori, informed in its derivation. A Deaf inform-
ant explains: “I think the original sign for ‘hāngi’ made a huge impact on
our thinking. The sign we had always used was based on the mouth pat-
tern of the word ‘hāngi,’ which was easily recognized by Deaf, but it had
the wrong meaning. We decided we needed to modify it to express the
Māori concept. There were other Māori words that had signs using the
wrong concept.”
The new form for “hāngi” depicts a pit in the ground (see Figure 13),
which relates transparently to the referent rather than to an English-speaker
perspective on the word’s form and is thus more acceptable to Māori.
grammatical functions of MS
Like Māori loanwords in NZE, Māori borrowings in NZSL are pre-
dominantly nouns. Table 2 summarizes the function of MS in different
derivational categories, including signs in the 1997 NZSL dictionary and
our 2003 data. Since the collection of the data for this study, we have
also observed some additional coinages not recorded here.
table 2. Forms of Māori Borrowings into NZSL
Type of Sign Number Class of Māori

Formation of Signs1 Source Word2
Native or established 18 common noun 13

signs of long-standing verb 3
use in NZSL adjective 2
(Kennedy 1997) (Māori/Pākehā)
Semantic loans 25 common noun 16

Extend the meaning of verb 6
existing signs to Māori greeting/phatic 3
reference through Māori
mouthing. Most are
recent borrowings.
Loan translations 6 common noun 4

Transfer of Māori proper noun 2
structure into sign
morphemes (e.g., whare
kai dine hall,
kōhanga reo fs. kr)
Neologisms 23 common noun 10

New reference: created proper noun 12
to fill lexical gaps (Māori- greeting 1
specific concepts)
Substitutions for
existing signs
Totals 72 Common noun 43

Proper noun 14
Verb 9
Adjective 2
Greeting/phatic 4
1. Some concepts have competing variants. In all cases, the variants for one concept are of
the same derivational type (e.g., semantic loan or neologism). Since our focus is on the ex-
tent of semantic borrowing and the possibilities for constructing loans rather than internal
variation within this set, Column 2 lists the number of concepts borrowed, rather than the
total number of sign variants in existence for these concepts.
2. Some forms that are classed as nouns in Māori have a verblike character in NZSL (e.g.,
the abstract noun whānaungatanga (“collectiveness”) in NZSL has a movement that sug-
gests the act or process of connecting. Furthermore, some borrowed terms function as both
noun and verb in Māori, which makes this analysis only roughly indicative of the usage
borrowed into NZSL rather than a precise description of their grammatical status.

Of the neologisms, the largest number are proper nouns (iwi names
and substitute place names); six out of ten common nouns are abstract
concepts that have no exact equivalence in the existing NZSL lexicon,
and these signs have thus been coined to enable cultural reference or to
achieve precision of meaning (Macalister 2003). Most of the semantic
loans are also common nouns. This breakdown is consistent with
Haugen’s (1950) early finding that nouns are more frequently imported
than other parts of speech (such as function words and verbs). The small
number of verbs resulting from TRM and NZSL contact are mostly ex-
pressed by the semantic loan of an existing NZSL verb by adding a
Māori mouth pattern, or are motivated signs that depict actions mimet-
ically. Given the mimetic nature of many verbs in sign language and the
fact that verbs tend to be core concepts across languages, there is intu-
itively less need for the semantic importation of verbs from a foreign lan-
guage, except for actions that are highly culture specific (e.g., haka or
action song/warrior dance).
While neologisms attract the most attention, semantic loan is the most
productive process for borrowing Māori concepts into NZSL. This is un-
surprising from a linguistic viewpoint but belies folk description and the
perception of MS as “new” lexicon or as something other than NZSL.
An extension of established signs to express Māori reference simply in-
creases the degree of polysemy already present in NZSL vocabulary and
demonstrates mouthing to be a productive mechanism in NZSL for con-
textualizing and extending the referential meaning of manual signs.
Signed English Influence on MS Forms
When the teaching of Māori culture began in 1991 in a deaf school set-
ting, the use of Australasian Signed English (ASE) was educational policy.
This initial cultural exchange within a Signed English context influenced
the formation of some of the first signs associated with Māori concepts,
which have since been modified. A MD informant referred to the role of
Signed English as a transitional contact language that allowed the appro-
priation of Māori meanings into NZSL: “We [MD group with a hearing
tutor] used Signed English as a way to access the meaning of Māori words
and concepts. For instance, I learned about the protocol around the cor-
rect place and time to stand and speak in a formal Māori setting. Signed
English gave me access to understanding the protocol and the meaning be-
hind it. But signs used for Māori concepts at this time were sometimes not
natural — didn’t feel right — so we would modify the signs.”
An example of this process was the translation of the Māori word

“kai” as the Signed English form of food in early contact between Deaf
and hearing Māori. The Signed English form is articulated with closed
fingers (baby O) circling the mouth (the circular movement being a mod-
ification for the pedagogical purpose of allowing lipreading of the spo-
ken word). Although this sign is a contrived and marked form in NZSL,
it was readily adopted as the fixed translation for “kai” by MD who oth-
erwise used the established NZSL sign, in which the hand moves toward
the mouth, for reference to food or eating. There are two possible rea-
sons for this alternation between the conventional NZSL sign and the
“Māori”/TC sign: First, the translation was originally made by a hearing
Māori tutor who at that time had learned Signed English but not NZSL;
in addition, this sign was demonstrated as being a “Māori sign” on the
basis that it was different from the established NZSL (i.e., “English”)
sign for food and was distinguishable as having Māori meaning (i.e., its
different form marked its foreign status). Currently, the traditional
NZSL sign food appears to have regained favor among our informants
as the translation for “kai” in a Māori context. This change probably re-
flects a maturing understanding of the relationship between spoken and
sign languages (i.e., the realization that signs and words do not need to
exist in a one-to-one form/meaning correspondence), as well as a chang-
ing political sensitivity in the Deaf community about the different sym-
bolic capital of Signed English versus NZSL, as hearing versus Deaf-
controlled codes.
Another usage that originated in the Signed English context and has
subsequently undergone phonological modification is a neologism for
the phrase tena koutou (“greetings to you [plural]), which is a conven-
tional acknowledgement uttered in Māori welcome and closing se-
quences. The original sign coined for this was formed with the G hand-
shape of the two-handed manual alphabet (Figure 14) derived from the
first letter of the English translation, “greetings.” The G handshape is
moved in neutral space toward the addressees. This form/meaning pair-
ing was twice removed from the Māori source since the G handshape was
a manual representation of an English translation of a Māori phrase.
Moreover, the combination of a fingerspelling handshape with another
morpheme is a relatively rare derivation in NZSL, as the manual alpha-
bet was not widely known prior to the introduction of Signed English in
1979. The original sign has been modified through usage to a noninitial-
ized formation with a flat base hand (Figure 15), and its etymology in

figure 14. tena figure 15. tena figure 16. tena

koutou 1 Derivation: koutou 2 Derivation: koutou 3 Derivation:
initialized g(reetings) modified form of 1 semantic loan hello
ASE is now opaque. Neither the original nor the modified form of tena
koutou had any semantic or formal relationship to conceptually equiva-
lent signs of greeting in NZSL and are thus clearly distinguished by form
and meaning as new MS. Some MD stated that a native NZSL sign
(hello) (as in Figure 16) or another sign of acknowledgement (honor)
with tena koutou mouthing is a more meaningful way of borrowing this
formal greeting into NZSL.
The evolution of a sign equivalent for tena koutou illustrates the idea,
current at the time it was coined, that sign language is a code for spoken
— and specifically English — words. Borrowing Māori lexicon into
NZSL via the representation of an English equivalent was an attempt to
negotiate between Māori and Deaf reference by using English as an in-
termediary contact language, resulting in some borrowings that reflect
“artificial influences” on the language (Battison 1978, 96). Moreover,
confusion around the “need” to coin MS to correspond with Māori word
forms for concepts already in the NZSL lexicon, such as “food,” point
to the “tyranny of glossing” (Slobin 2006), that is, the hazards of repre-
senting the vocabulary of a sign language through the medium of a dom-
inant spoken language, as is conventional (albeit often unavoidable) in
sign language research and dictionaries. Glossing not only creates a po-
tentially false or restrictive sense of natural association between the
forms and semantics of the two language but, in this case, also appar-
ently supports a Māori perception that NZSL is culturally synonymous
with the dominant spoken language.
Acceptability of Contact Forms
New coinages and usages are potentially contestable, especially when

they are considered to be linked to sociopolitical goals or particular par-
ties, as with MS. New MS that fill lexical gaps in Māori discourse domains
appear to have been the most readily adopted. Substitutions for signs
that are patently offensive to Māori — and where the new coinage has a
transparent origin (e.g., hāngi) — also seem to be readily accepted.
However, signs coined with the aim of supplanting established NZSL
signs (particularly place names) are generally contentious; this mirrors
the resistance of hearing Māori to many TRM neologisms coined and
promoted by the Māori Language Commission (Keegan 2005).
Responses to revised Māori suburb names in Auckland illustrate cases
of dubious acceptability. The MD informants discussed recent changes to
the sign for Mangere, the airport suburb of Auckland, which Deaf
Aucklanders traditionally refer to as airplane mouth: mangere, in a
descriptive name sign. They also reported that two new coinages were
initiated through interaction with hearing Māori: The first was a seman-
tic translation of the Māori word lazy, which has gained some currency
in the Auckland community, and the second was a complex, polymor-
phemic sign referring to a historical aspect of the area that is opaque
without knowledge of the story. Our group of informants disagreed
about the naturalness and relevance of the two introduced name signs:
While some had adopted the neologisms, one participant felt that they
were meaningless from a Deaf perspective, compared to the relevance of
the original sign airplane, which is an iconic feature of the area. This
participant self-identified as ethnically Māori but was not active within
the MD network; she was openly skeptical about out-group intervention
in the creation of signs. Based on our interaction in the Deaf community,
we believe this attitude is probably reflective of other MD who have not
been involved in the development of MS through joint activity with hear-
ing Māori.
Deaf participants described situations in which new signs or transla-
tions were being coined, where hearing Māori were arguing among
themselves about the precise meaning of Māori concepts and the accept-
ability of new sign coinages. Some hearing participants (such as elders or
cultural “experts”) were concerned with the accurate representation of
cultural meaning from a Māori perspective, while others (usually trilin-
gual interpreters) argued from a linguistically informed perspective
about respecting the integrity of meaning and structures within NZSL. A
Deaf informant explains:
A wānanga [workshop] took place in a marae for the MD community,

and one session was about ‘Māori Sign Language’. There was friction

between the hearing Māori who felt that MD did not understand
Māori concepts. MD wanted to create a Māori sign if a Māori concept
was clear to us, but the hearing Māori didn’t always agree with our
signs. Sometimes the Māori concept of a word has a deeper meaning
that MD don’t fully grasp. . . . If there was a clear instant definition,
MD could come up with a sign relevant to the meaning of the Māori
concept, then it would be shown to hearing Māori, as we think it is
adequate in the MD community.
An interpreter recalls the same event:
The hearing people got upset because they were the ones that had de-
veloped the signs, and they thought that we [interpreters and Deaf]
were being offensive by saying the sign was inappropriate. And the
Kuia was getting upset because [the meaning of a Deaf-derived sign
was inaccurate]. And the Deaf were getting frustrated. . . . So it ended
up being quite a heated hui, that one! . . . And in the end, [a Deaf
leader] got up and said, “No, we won’t take these signs.” Because
we’d been developing signs back at Kelston [Deaf Education Centre]
. . . with MD students. So he got up and showed the signs that they
had already developed, which were different.
In the situation just described, the MD refused to accept the determi-

nation of new language items from outside their group. Commenting on
similar issues around coinages in spoken Māori, Benton (2001, 43) ob-
serves that “there seems to be a perennial conflict between the ‘owners’
of a concept . . . and various speakers and semi-speakers with equally
varied claims or pretensions to ownership or control of the language
through which the concept is to be expressed.” Contested boundaries be-
tween hearing and Deaf cultural expertise, as well as the ownership of
language creation, are evident, even within a superficially shared frame
of ethnic empowerment.
New MS for iwi names and aspects of marae protocol appear to have
been readily adopted because they have functionality and relevance for
MD who wish to participate in Māori domains. Iwi names, for example,
are essential to establishing one’s identity as Māori because a formulaic
introduction in Māori settings includes, at a minimum, identifying one’s
tribal affiliation and lineage, as well as tribal geographical landmarks. To
express Māori identity by adopting customary forms of interaction, MD
need new language.
Participants reported a number of iwi names that have recently been

coined. As happens with personal name signs, an iwi might be identified
by a particular sign by its members but teasingly referred to by an alter-
native sign by nonmembers, usually highlighting a notorious trait of that
iwi (mirroring similar jokes among hearing Māori). Teasing through MS
about iwi identity shows that Māori cultural knowledge has been appro-
priated by Deaf people, and is being used to generate in-group humor,
which constructs and reinforces MD ethnicity. The flipside is that claim-
ing iwi versus Deaf community or collective MD affiliation introduces a
source of new identity tension, as this interpreter’s anecdote illustrates:
At a meeting recently, Māori Deaf were debating amongst themselves

over what iwi they were, saying, only Ngati Kahungunu MD can have
these T-shirts that they wanted to get printed. And when we sat down
and talked about it, there was only one actually from Ngati
Kahungunu. All the rest were from Ngati Porou, and then this real-
ization that how they all connect is through this fact that they’re all
Deaf! . . . But they debated. It was those two cultures clashing about
“Who are we? How is it that we are all here in this one room together,
but we are all from different iwi?” . . . And they were fighting about
who could be part of this group. It wasn’t ’til somebody said that
“We’re all Deaf” that they kind of went, “Yeah, we are, aren’t we!” .
. . And it’s progress. . . . It’s how these people are starting to reiden-
tify themselves . . . reinvent themselves.
Diffusion of New Contact Forms
Theoretical accounts of borrowing posit that two language communi-

ties in contact may remain essentially monolingual, but a small subset of
bilinguals can become the vehicle for introducing borrowed elements. In
Strang’s (1970) account, the borrowers do not have to be bilingual but
must simply have enough exposure to the other language and the social
motivation to introduce new forms to the host language. Figure 17 rep-
resents this scenario, in which the agents of contact (hearing and deaf
Māori) and diffusion are not necessarily fully bilingual (with the excep-
tion of trilingual Māori interpreters).
Transmission of MS between MD is potentially hindered by the fact
that their participation in Māori events is often in the context of hearing
kin groups, more often with an interpreter than with other Deaf people.
Māori interpreters are thus potentially key agents of MS diffusion, as this

Maori Hearing Maori L2 NZSL speakers

speakers (interpreters, NZSL
learners/friends, teachers, etc.)
NZSL
Deaf Maori L1 NZSL speakers speakers
figure 17. Contact and diffusion between Māori and NZSL. Adapted from
Macalister 2003.
interpreter explains: “We’re going to be the vehicle of getting the lan-

guage out to other MD. . . . We shift from one region to another; the
signs go with us, and so other MD or other Deaf become exposed to
these new signs and concepts.”
Diffusion will be determined by the capacity to maintain Māori Deaf
social networks and to sustain Deaf-dominant domains where MS serve
a communicative purpose. A small marae established at Kelston Deaf
Education Centre in Auckland, named Ruamoko, is currently regarded
as a habitat for nurturing MD language and ways. An interpreter refers
to the importance of this place, which follows Māori principles but is
firmly in Deaf territory:
You see MD tikanga [customs] being used at the marae, and I think if
other Deaf came in, they may not straight away pick up what the sign
is, but in the context they would. Because it is still the development of
NZSL, so it’s not these created signs from people who have no idea
what Deaf culture and sign language is about. These are all signs that
have been developed by MD who have been out there to pōwhiri and
been at tangi and gotten an idea of what’s going on now, and they’ve
developed those signs. And they’re being used a lot.
In a final stage in the transfer of words between languages, idiosyn-

cratic borrowings become habitualized and generalized to other users
(Haugen 1950, 87). The extent to which MS have become habitualized
as loans in wider NZSL usage has not yet been empirically measured. At
a national Māori Deaf hui in November 2005, the topic of MS was a key
focus, and we observed from this interaction that many neologisms and
usages under discussion were unfamiliar to those outside a small net-
work of politically active MD, indicating that contact forms (and indeed
participation in Māori domains) are still of limited diffusion in the wider
community. It was apparent that many MS are conceptually new to the

majority of MD, who have had little exposure to TRM; uptake of these
forms will require mastering form and meaning correspondences between
Māori and NZSL. There was debate over the merits of competing variants
of some neologisms, some of which have not yet moved from individual
(or localized) lexicons to the generalized community lexicon. If loanwords
are defined as lexical items integrated into another language in the sense
of being regularly used by monolinguals (see Boyes Braem 2001, 121, for
example), it is more accurate to characterize most MS as borrowings or
even code switches rather than established loans at this stage.
As already indicated, some signs that were motivated by hearing
Māori have achieved limited diffusion, as they are either redundant (Deaf
people have established ways of referring to these meanings) or perceived
to be artificial in their formation (e.g., Papatoetoe and Mangere [suburb
names]). Some neologisms express culturally significant meanings from a
Māori perspective but are so infrequently used by MD that they have lit-
tle currency (e.g., names for deities or the lineage of tribal chiefs), as this
Māori interpreter commented: “As wonderful as these signs are, and the
development of more concepts, it’s not relevant to the everyday use of the
language. . . . How often would you get up and sign all the different atua
[deities]?”
These outcomes indicate that individuals, hearing or Deaf, who are
marginal members of the MD/NZSL community “may be useful points
of contact between language communities, but they do not necessarily in-
fluence the speech of those communities” (Macalister 2003, 285). While
interpreters and hearing signers have been actively involved with initiat-
ing borrowing from TRM into NZSL, the acceptance of new usages is
ultimately determined by processes within the networks of MD who use
them frequently and in effect screen their acceptability according to in-
tuitive (but not necessarily unanimous) criteria before disseminating
them into the wider NZSL community.
IDEOLOGIES AND OWNERSHIP OF MS
Ideologies about languages are “always socially situated and tied to

questions of identity and power in societies” (Blackledge and Pavlenko
2001, 246). The goals of Deaf and hearing people involved in the devel-
opment of MS overlap but do not completely converge, as each group

brings its own historical experience of language-power relations and

contemporary agendas of identity politics to the interaction. This section
considers hearing and Deaf ideas and aspirations relating to MS.
Hearing Agendas
The first hearing Māori person to tutor MD in 1991 described an in-

tense exchange in which both parties recognized themselves as learners
and teachers of culture and language:
As soon as the MD community knew that I was teaching at KDEC my

privacy went right out the door. They came every night, and they
wouldn’t go home till midnight. They’d just sit there and just throw
this knowledge out — more and more and more. They immersed me.
Everywhere I went, people were just coming with me. It was their way
of trying to open a door that hadn’t been open to them in their school-
ing experience.
Because this activity was situated in a school for deaf students, Deaf
people were in the majority in relation to the Māori tutor, and reverse
immersion experiences in each other’s territory ensued. He refers to MD
“immersing” him, while he was simultaneously enabling a “closed door”
to be opened for them. This sociocultural exchange is where the spark
for MS was lit.
Hearing Māori arriving as nonsigners or NZSL learners to intercul-
tural encounters have generally wanted MD to gain access to the Māori
cultural capital, which is encoded in knowledge of TRM, as a route to
connecting with the benefits of Māori ethnic solidarity. From a hearing
perspective, the dual goals of encoding cultural knowledge through MS
are for MD to adopt behavior and values consistent with Māori cultural
norms and to build self-worth through stronger connection and identity
with Māori. All of our hearing participants used the metaphor of “open-
ing a door” into the Māori world.
Hearing Māori have also gained from this contact the experience of
learning NZSL and in some cases status, expertise, and career opportu-
nities linked to “supporting the needs” of Deaf people. A Māori inter-
preting student quoted in a 2003 article expresses such motives: “I
would love people to learn Māori signs, so we can better communicate
as a Māori culture. We need to help MD understand the true meaning of
what is being said and done on a marae. Sign language interpreting helps
bridge those communication gaps” (quoted in West 2003, 4).
An experienced trilingual Māori interpreter interviewed in this study

reflects more critically on the hearing agenda:
It all started out with really good intentions . . . a group of Māori who
had a connection to the Deaf community through a whānau [family]
member who was profoundly deaf, and what they saw from a non-
Deaf community member’s point of view was a language that didn’t
accommodate for te reo Māori and didn’t accommodate for access to
tikanga. And so that’s where the concept was born — that we need to
develop a language that would accommodate for tikanga.
Several participants mentioned hearing Māori perceptions of NZSL as

an English- or Pākehā-based language and a feeling that the development
of “Māori Sign Language” is a step toward liberation from the hege-
mony of a language identified with the dominant culture. This perception
is built on several factors: first, the fact that NZSL users frequently use
English mouthing with signs, due to a natural and pedagogical situation
of language contact with English, which supports the misapprehension
that Deaf sign languages derive from spoken languages; second, the idea
that, since English is the dominant language of the educational system
and sign language is acquired mainly in school settings, NZSL would
therefore be derivative of that language; third, Māori NZSL users, when
asked, may be unable to produce a lexical NZSL equivalent for a given
Māori word either because the Māori word or concept is unfamiliar or
they are not used to the process of finding equivalence between lan-
guages giving the impression of untranslatability.
Underlying a perception of NZSL as Pākehā is an element of “social
evaluation” (Horvath and Vaughan 1991): Seen through the lens of a de-
colonizing agenda, the majority of the Deaf community are Pākehā, and
so NZSL is “naturally” aligned with the identity and culture of that col-
onizing majority. Hearing Māori who encounter the Deaf community
tend to readily empathize with their historical experience of linguistic op-
pression in the school system and find resonance between the Deaf strug-
gle for empowerment and the Tino Rangatiratanga movement. Since
hearing Māori ethnicity and cultural empowerment are powerfully sig-
naled by speaking TRM, the parallel assumption is often made that MD
identity would also be marked — and indeed advanced — by a distinct
sign language variety (MSL). This kind of parallelism is also observed as
a factor in Catalonian Deaf attitudes toward Spanish and Catalonian
sign and speech varieties (Morales-López et al. 2002). A Māori inter-

preter explained this belief: “They [hearing Māori in contact with MD]
didn’t know that NZSL was an independent language: They saw English
and NZSL as the same language, just that one’s visual. So hence, ‘We
need to develop Māori Sign Language because they’ve got English, and
we need one for Māori.’ So that’s where you started getting this gram-
matical ‘Signed Māori’ thing happening.”
The Māori Language Commission, which is responsible for the main-
tenance and promotion of TRM, was reportedly approached by more
than one hearing Māori organization with Deaf participants for assis-
tance to develop Māori Sign Language, although the commission has no
relationship to the Deaf community. This is an example of a perception
of signs as a potential manual extension of TRM, and MD as potential
beneficiaries of access to TRM via contrived means.
Trilingual interpreters are positioned slightly differently from other
hearing parties in relation to MD and MS (and also perhaps differently
from non-Māori interpreters in relation to the Deaf community gener-
ally). Their definition of their role as interpreters is framed by the con-
temporary political ethic of self-determination for Māori through
strengthening cultural identity and also by the strong traditional Māori
value of seeking connectedness (known as whānaungatanga [“familyness/
relatedness”]). The trilingual interpreter’s role is sensitive to a Māori so-
cial framework, which values the collective over the individual and
where process and maintenance of relationships may be more important
than outcomes. Accordingly, Māori participants in intercultural situa-
tions tend to see the interpreter as having a supportive role as a partici-
pant in the activity rather than an outside or a neutral role (Napier et al.
2006). Trilingual interpreters are thus positioned between two commu-
nities (Deaf and Māori) in which participation and personal connection
are highly valued and where boundaries between professional and social
relationships are more relaxed. Our interviewees, Deaf and hearing, rec-
ognized the Māori interpreters’ primary function of language mediation
but also saw them as holding extended roles as allies in the larger kaua-
papa or agenda for MD empowerment, which includes the development
of NZSL to express Māori concepts.
As a generalization, hearing agendas around MS reflect an integra-
tionist desire to afford a marginalized group access to its (hearing) cul-
ture and empowerment strategies, grounded in the assumption that its
goals and intentions will align since both groups have experienced cul-
tural domination. While parallel ethnic agendas have certainly opened
new paths for MD, some of our participants also noted the risk of as-
suming too much common ground. An interpreter reflected, “There’s a
risk that MS could still be captured by hearing people to some degree . . .
because we are a people that [feel] ‘What’s yours is mine. You don’t have
to carry this on your own. We’ll help!’ And that’s the way we approach
everything. . . . It’s a very strong connection there [between Deaf power
and tino rangatiratanga], so people do get quite passionate about it.”
This is not a new or unique scenario for Deaf people, according to
Humphries:
Solidarity, or the stressing of the same in the same-but-different ap-

proach to intercultural contact, may threaten the modern Deaf self. . . .
In intercultural interactions, there is sometimes a natural tendency for
one party to break down differences, to assert sameness, to assume that
despite cultural differences, underneath the skin, we are all the same. It
is this assertion of sameness that is threatening to the Deaf self because
most Deaf people are still struggling with or can remember what it was
like to be totally dominated and defined by others. (1996, 358)
In this case, some hearing people involved in the contact were more
aware than others of the subtle differences between Deaf and hearing
solidarity agendas, according to their insight into the hegemony of spo-
ken over signed language and the difference between their own and MD
people’s positioning in relation to Māori culture and identity.
Deaf Agendas
MD share with hearing Māori an aspiration to create contact lan-

guage forms that symbolize their indigenous ethnicity and enable them
to participate more easily in Māori domains. However, their accounts of
how this process has unfolded suggest that their agenda differs funda-
mentally from that of hearing participants. MD enter the cultural con-
tact process as members of a “community of solidarity” in the Deaf
world (Johnson 1991), which is not always apparent to hearing people
who see themselves as natural cultural allies within a Māori community
of solidarity. Echoing Humphries, MD participants described paternal-
ism in hearing-Deaf interactions and their desire to maintain an auton-
omous Deaf self, hinging on ownership of sign language:
Hearing Māori tend to control us when we discuss things in Māori set-

tings, like following Māori protocols appropriately or doing things

Māori the right way when it involves language and behavior. For ex-
ample, from the perspective of Māori protocol, I could be displaying
inappropriate cultural conduct when I’m actually communicating ef-
fectively in my language. . . . When hearing Māori come, we conceal
our language because we want to protect our natural language. . . .
Sign language belongs to us.
In Smiler’s 2004 study, a MD NZSL teacher (who also has some

knowledge of spoken TRM) expressed resistance to hearing intervention
in language change and questioned the construct of MS or MSL as pro-
moted by individuals who lacked sociohistorical and metalinguistic in-
sight into the NZSL community:
Some Māori hearing people set up Māori education training estab-

lishments, and they teach what they call “Māori Sign.” I reject that. I
mean, how do they know? They haven’t seen the research on Deaf
studies, nor do they know about Deaf history or what it is like to
grow up Deaf. . . . You can’t set up “Māori Sign Language” because
Māori Deaf people don’t have a history of being socialized in the
Māori world. They don’t know what the concepts in the Māori world
mean. And Māori hearing don’t know about Deaf history. They don’t
know about Deaf oppression. They don’t know any of these things!
So I can’t see how Māori hearing think that they can take the owner-
ship of sign language away from us. . . . They need to have Māori Deaf
in there being involved and giving regular input, and Māori Deaf
should not be pushed aside so that they can claim the fame! I believe
there should be a focus on the Deaf way, and the Māori Deaf com-
munity as a whole need to use their own initiatives to make claims to
their own sign language that represents them as a collective commu-
nity. But the thing is that Māori hearing people tell us that we are
wrong and we need to understand the traditional concepts, and I
agree with that. So I say to them, if you want me to understand the
wairua [spirituality] of Te Reo Māori or you want Māori Deaf to un-
derstand about whakapapa [history] . . . then you need to understand
our perspective as Deaf so that we can work alongside one another.
(Smiler 2004, 123)
This informant also commented that men have had a dominant role
in coining MS, motivated by the public speaking roles assigned to males
in formal Māori contexts, which entail the use of formulaic language.
This gender dynamic in motivating borrowing was not explored in this

study but points to the complex interplay of social factors in the process
of language contact and change.
MD informants believe that hearing allies, particularly trilingual in-
terpreters, are indispensable to their goals; one stated that in Māori-
speaking contexts “TRM is inaccessible to us, which is why a trilingual
interpreter is vital to facilitate the communication process — so we can
understand. Māori trilingual interpreters are desperately needed for MD
to advance in their learning and sharing of information with hearing
Māori.”
Yet the same informant also commented that hearing mediation of
cultural contact can inhibit a sense of autonomy:
A trilingual interpreter is helpful for us to access Māori concepts or

teach us the appropriate way of doing things Māori. Naturally, hear-
ing Māori trilingual interpreters who have extensive knowledge of
Māori customs might feel that Māori Deaf are not mindful of cultural
protocols. That can make us feel incapable or inferior. They’ll tell us
what we should or shouldn’t do, but we strongly feel as Deaf people,
we can advance. Our language wouldn’t have been disrupted if hear-
ing Māori allowed us to develop ourselves and our language. Many
times since 1991 our ambition to develop and increase Māori signs
has been suppressed by hearing Māori, when our language should
have been expanded more.
The MD informants made it clear that their agenda in developing and

using MS is not primarily about integrating into the hearing Māori
world. For them, acquiring knowledge of Māori culture and expressing
this via new contact language forms in NZSL is a route to constructing
MD identity on their own terms.
The importance participants attached to having their own marae
(Ruamoko) represents a desire to build their own community founda-
tions (Jankowski 1995), though the creation of both physical place and
a MD cultural space (Gulliver 2005), as this participant implies: “We are
fortunate and thankful to be able to develop our own tūrangawaewae in
our marae, a place where we stand strong and create our language of
Māori concepts.”6 The phrase “our language of Māori concepts” implies
that sign language is the natural medium for MD expression of Māori
culture; a “place to stand strong” asserts that MD are the guardians of
their own process of cultural development. Vis-à-vis the modern redefin-

ing of the Deaf self in relation to hearing society, Humphries (1996, 358)
observes that “Although hearing people may think that Deaf people’s
goal is to be included in society, it is more likely that Deaf people’s goal
is one of maintenance of boundaries between cultures and a search for
accommodation that allows the Deaf person to remain true to the self.”
The sense of ownership of MS that Deaf participants expressed indi-
cates their ambition to adopt Māori concepts and cultural forms in ways
that are meaningful to them — through a Deaf lens, effectively con-
structing a “MD culture” rather than simply transposing Māori culture
into a Deaf context or assimilating themselves into a Māori context. The
divergence in goals that Humphries describes was evident in this case
study of intercultural situations between Deaf and hearing Māori.
INVOKING ETHNIC IDENTITY THROUGH THE USE OF MS
Borrowing the idea that the use of fingerspelled items in ASL assigns
both foreign meaning and foreign status to certain words (Padden and
Gunsauls 2003), we contend that the use of MS has a dual function of
expressing foreign (in this case indigenous but foreign to NZSL) referen-
tial content, as well as signifying the signers’ personal sphere of cultural
reference. In this sense, the acts of coining, using, and labeling certain
signs as “MS” function symbolically to enact ethnic identity as MD and
to alter the situational frame (Goffman 1974) from “Deaf” to “Māori
Deaf.”
At the 2005 National MD Hui, debate over the semantics and form
of MS revealed a desire for MS to be distinct in form, as well as in cul-
tural reference, from other NZSL signs. For example, discussion arose
over two variants for the concept pōwhiri, for which the most commonly
used translation is the sign welcome mouth: pōwhiri. An alternative
form exists that mimetically depicts the action of two hands waving
bunches of leaves in a ritual movement performed by women as they
welcome visitors onto a marae. It was mooted that this variant is a more
indigenous form since it consists of a visually iconic description (i.e.,
Deaf perspective) of a culturally symbolic detail (Māori perspective) of
the event; moreover, it is distinct from the NZSL sign welcome, which
is usually associated with an English gloss. Debates like these are less
motivated by issues of semantic equivalence or articulation preferences
and more by considerations of how the packaging of meaning (such as
the “foreignness” or uniqueness of the sign form) indexes both a Deaf

and a Māori worldview.
MS or MSL? Naming the Signs
Speakers of community languages and linguists often disagree about

what constitutes a separate language, dialect, or variety; speakers may em-
phasize the social significance of distinctions in usage that linguists regard
as empirically minimal (Horvath and Vaughan 1991). From a linguistic
point of view, this category of new forms and meanings in NZSL can be
described as “contact signs” since they arise in interactional contexts of
Māori-NZSL contact, but ultimately they are NZSL signs. As an expan-
sion of the NZSL lexicon, semantic imports from TRM enable communi-
cation in new content domains and utilize known mechanisms for bor-
rowing or creating lexicon. As such, they are like the contact forms
resulting from other contexts that NZSL users have recently entered,
where academic, technical, or other foreign vocabulary is necessary to the
interaction and influences the actual form of the equivalent signs coined.
However, social perspectives on how users choose to characterize such
language developments are complex. Some participants in this study felt
that the term MSL, which implies a distinct language variety and/or a de-
rivative relationship to spoken Māori, is a misnomer. A Māori interpreter
stated, “A conversation in ‘Māori Sign Language,’ it’s NZSL with some
Māori signs that have been developed.”
Some Deaf and hearing individuals use the term “MSL” loosely in
MD circles, while using MS with uninformed outsiders, who may incor-
rectly assume that “MSL” means a historical sign language indigenous
to Māori, a manual equivalent of spoken Māori, or a distinct sociolect of
NZSL. On the other hand, some deliberately or indiscriminately use the
term MSL to promote recognition of their dual identity. Politically, this
has had some effect in attracting Māori attention and resources even
though the goals are often confused by the terminology. For example, a
headline in a professional teachers’ journal reads “Signing in Te Reo”
above an article about a government initiative to support training of
NZSL interpreters who can also speak Māori (West 2003). Māori terti-
ary education institutions have even advertised “Māori Sign Language”
courses; in some cases MD tutors have supported this mislabeling of
what are actually NZSL courses taught by MD, while others have chal-
lenged the inaccuracy of the term (Karen Pointon, pers. comm.,
November 2005).

Connecting MD with TRM sits well with the Māori agenda of cul-
tural regeneration and also with a governmental imperative to address
the inclusion of Māori with disabilities; the ambiguous term “MSL” cre-
ates the impression of a vehicle for achieving such goals. A Deaf repre-
sentative of the government agency who drafted the NZSL Act told MD
at the 2005 hui that the loose use of the term “MSL” has already
prompted some confusion and misplaced concern among policy makers
about recognizing NZSL as an official language of the Deaf community
if Māori Deaf language rights might be marginalized by this, which is
patently not the case.
The terms “MS” or “MSL” are used (often interchangeably) with dif-
ferent intent by different parties — as a label for a category of signs with
Māori reference and/or as a tool of identity politics that distinguishes
Māori within the NZSL community and simultaneously increases soli-
darity between MD and hearing Māori. This echoes the conclusion of
Morales-López et al. (2002, 143) that Deaf Catalonians’ characterization
of their regional sign variety as a distinct language (LSC) is an attempt
to constitute both a political reality and an identity motivated by a larger
nationalist movement. We contend that for MD, using the terms “MSL”
and “MS” invokes a framework of cultural alliance (Goffman 1981) and
indexes an indigenous identity that previously had no linguistic means of
symbolic expression.
It remains to be seen how this development will be perceived within
the wider NZSL community. There is functional value to all NZSL
users in having a lexicon to express Māori reference, yet it is also pos-
sible that use of MS as emblems of MD identity and the assertion of
proprietary rights over change in NZSL might be perceived as a shift
in cultural allegiance that potentially threatens community solidarity —
a phenomenon described in international contexts of shifting language-
ethnic boundaries in which the “one language, one people” formula is
disputed (Blackledge and Pavlenko 2001). As Humphries (1996) ob-
serves of the Deaf culture revolution, control of language is a mecha-
nism for creating distance and shifting the balance of power in defin-
ing self and others. Just as the New Zealand Deaf collective has
promoted the recognition of NZSL as a route to articulating a cultur-
ally distinct voice within NZ society, MD may be simultaneously using
the development of MS as a means of “distancing of wills, self-images,
and voice” (ibid., 361) from the majority Deaf community and thus di-
versifying its image.
Construction of MD Identity in Written and Spoken Māori
Deaf contact with the discourse of tino rangatiratanga has also man-
ifested in some interesting Deaf contact forms in written Māori. An
everyday example is MD people’s use of Māori greetings and sign-offs in
text messaging and emails, reflective of hearing Māori usage. Unique to
MD are two Māori terms that challenge hearing Māori definitions of
their identity. The first of these is Ngati Turi, roughly meaning “tribe of
Deaf people.” “Ngati” is a conventional prefix in tribal names, meaning
“descendants/people of,” and Turi means “deaf.”7 The term “Ngati” is
applied in contemporary New Zealand to other communities of interest
not originating in the Māori world, often humorously, such as Ngati
Cappuccino, a hybrid term for professional, urban Māori (Macalister
2005) and Ngati Pākehā (the tribe of non-Māori). By invoking indige-
nous reference to kinship, the coinage Ngati Turi boldly constructs Deaf
people as a historically continuous collective with common purpose, cul-
ture, and kin-like bonds.
A second coinage is tino rangatira-turi-tanga, a Deaf appropriation of
the Māori slogan of political self-determination (tino self or ultimate;
rangatiratanga sovereignty). By inserting the segment turi (“deaf”),
this morphologically unconventional form invokes solidarity between
MD and hearing Māori in their struggle for empowerment and cultural
acknowledgment. By deliberately adapting a phrase that is recognizable
yet somewhat challenging to a Māori understanding of Deaf people, MD
are invoking a convergence of agendas that hearing Māori will intuitively
support. This echoes the rhetorical strategy of the “Deaf President Now”
movement at Gallaudet University of borrowing Martin Luther King’s
slogan “We have a dream” to evoke a frame of civil rights struggle.
Interestingly, the written term “tino rangatiraturitanga” has no signed
equivalent yet, suggesting that its impact is aimed at a non-Deaf audi-
ence; a sign translation (or rather its meaning) was discussed inconclu-
sively at the 2005 MD hui. To date, we have not been able to identify an
NZSL form that represents this written coinage.
CONCLUSIONS
Over the last decade, Deaf-hearing interaction in Māori domains has

generated more contact between the languages, cultures, and sociopolit-
ical agendas of Deaf and Māori communities, motivating both sponta-

neous and deliberate coining of NZSL forms known locally as “Māori

signs” or “Māori Sign Language.” This development follows the in-
creasing use of Māori borrowings and code switching by hearing speak-
ers of NZE for the purposes of signaling cultural reference, identity, and
political solidarity.
The development of MS appears to be a case of borrowing non-basic
lexical items in a situation of “minimum cultural pressure” (Thomason
and Kaufman 1988, 77), where foreign meanings are imported through
loan shifts in the form of neologisms, loan translations, and the seman-
tic extension of existing signs through mouthing. The forms identified in
this study are still in the process of becoming naturalized borrowings and
are used mainly within the idiolects of those MD engaged in ethnic iden-
tification and interaction with the Māori world and their immediate net-
works. In the NZSL community generally, recent MS, including neolo-
gisms and semantic extensions of native signs, remain mostly in the
foreign category and thus are unfamiliar to most and restricted to certain
domains of use (such as ceremonial Māori welcome). However, social in-
dicators such as the increasing profile of Māori leaders in the Deaf com-
munity, as well as the incorporation of Māori cultural elements into Deaf
events and symbols of national Deaf identity, indicate a likely shift to-
ward the naturalization of MS in the lexicon. Further analysis of soci-
olinguistic variation in NZSL may determine whether Māori usage of
NZSL exhibits consistent distinctions in the lexicon and other structures.
Naming is important to the perception of a language and the group
boundaries it defines. Our analysis is that “Māori signs” — although fre-
quently referred to as “Māori Sign Language” — constitute neither a sign
language indigenous to Māori nor a manual equivalent of spoken Māori
nor, at this time, a distinct sociolect of NZSL. Māori signs are a set of
lexical items arising from contact between TRM and NZSL, created by
existing sign language mechanisms for borrowing semantic reference
into NZSL.
Deaf and hearing Māori have jointly engaged in processes of contact
language creation, each bringing their respective linguistic knowledge,
cultural agendas, and preferred ways of constructing Māori and Deaf
identity. This study shows how traditional hearing-Deaf power dynam-
ics may be replicated in intercultural interactions within an apparently
shared minority empowerment agenda. In this case, limited attempts to
devise Signed Māori and to revise existing NZSL signs exemplify a fa-
miliar Deaf experience of linguistic paternalism, framed by benevolent
but unexamined integrationist aspirations for the advancement of Deaf

people. On the other hand, collaboration with hearing allies who have
deferred to a Deaf perspective has been instrumental to the process of
MD claiming and constructing — through linguistic and social means —
their own place to stand.
Jankowski (1995, 309) identifies three strategies in cultural diversity
movements: “creation of a sense of self worth, establishment of an in-
ternal foundation for community building, and participation in public
life.” Māori contact signs have arisen in contexts in which Deaf and
hearing people have jointly focused on the first of these goals: strength-
ening of self-worth through exploration of cultural heritage. The creation
of MS obviously performs a communicative function of allowing MD to
engage with Māori cultural heritage in both external (hearing) and inter-
nal (Deaf) contexts. The development of MS is also seen as a tool for fa-
cilitating participation in public (Māori) life, a goal that is prioritized
more strongly by hearing Māori than by MD. Future study of how MS
are used in discourse will offer a further window on MD as an emerging
“community of practice” (Wenger 1998), in the sense of a group who are
engaged in a particular endeavor and are characterized by distinctive be-
liefs, values, and ways of talking and doing (Eckert and McConnell-
Ginet 1992).
Regardless of how the lexicon currently known as MS develops within
NZSL, the activity surrounding its creation and dissemination consti-
tutes a politicizing process that potentially reconstructs power relations
and a sense of cultural affinity among Māori Deaf, hearing Māori, and
Pākehā Deaf. Linguistic responses to contact between the Māori lan-
guage/culture and NZSL users show the potential complexity and multi-
plicity of the construct of “Deaf identity” and the role that foreign lan-
guage borrowing may play in constituting it.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank the participants who shared their knowledge and perspec-

tives for this study, in particular, Deaf members of Te Komiti o Ruamoko
at Kelston Deaf Education Centre for their support of the research. This
analysis is our interpretation of the language and experiences of the peo-
ple who informed the study; we accept responsibility for any potential
errors of commission or omission in our representation and acknowledge

that there may be alternative perspectives on the events and motives de-
scribed here. Deaf artist Shaun Fahey created the sign illustrations, and
Karen Pointon is the model in Figures 14–16. Comments from two re-
viewers were helpful in improving an earlier draft of the chapter.
NOTES
1. A word on labels: In New Zealand, the word “Māori” is used in con-

temporary Māori and English discourse as a plural noun to refer collectively to
Māori people; in fact, this form is often preferred by Māori speakers over the
full English phrase “Māori people,” in which “Māori” functions as an adjective
or a secondary characteristic. “Deaf” is similarly used as a collective noun both
in NZSL discourse and often in Deaf people’s spoken and written English.
Within both of these usages, the characteristic of humanness is assumed. While
we acknowledge that it may differ from current conventions in terminology that
refers to people who have disabilities or other minority statuses, we have cho-
sen to use MD as an abbreviation for collective reference to “Māori Deaf” (peo-
ple) as a close reflection of how our informants label themselves and their intent
in doing so.
2. By decolonization, we refer to the processes through which a subordi-
nated or colonized group tries to reverse the negative psychological and material
impacts of political and cultural domination (cf. Tuhiwai-Smith 1999). The de-
colonization agendas of Deaf and of Māori communities both manifest in activ-
ities such as deconstructing historical accounts of the group, political conscious-
ness raising, advocacy for political (and territorial) sovereignty, building
collective identity and pride, and revitalizing the culture and language.
3. Te Reo Māori is the indigenous, formal term for the Māori language.
Although the language is also commonly referred to in New Zealand as “Māori”
and also as “Te Reo,” we use the abbreviation TRM to distinguish reference to
the language from other uses of the word “Māori.”
4. A marae is a traditional venue where community events such as meet-
ings, funerals, workshops, and community celebrations are hosted. The marae
comprises an enclosed area of ground where the initial formalities between hosts
and visitors are exchanged, a large meeting house used for discussion and sleep-
ing, a dining hall, and sometimes other dwellings. The location, structures, tra-
ditions, and protocols of a marae all have ancestral significance.
5. Eighteen more Māori words also appear in the NZSL dictionary as pos-
sible synonyms or translations listed under an English headword (the primary
gloss). These Māori translations were included because they are familiar as
equivalents to hearing speakers of NZE, but these signs do not have exclusively
Māori reference (e.g., kawa is listed along with “protocol” as a secondary syn-
onym under the headword/sign “way”).
6. Tūrangawaewae means “home ground” or a “place to stand.”
7. Williams (1971, 459) lists “obstinate” as a related, secondary meaning
of “turi,” and the causative prefix “whakatuturi” gives the meaning “to turn a
deaf ear to, be obstinate, be unyielding.” This parallels English metaphors of
deafness as intentional uncooperative or inattentive behavior, suggesting some
common ground in Māori/Pakeha relations with Deaf people.
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Part 2 Lexical Comparisons

North American Indian Signed Language
Varieties: A Comparative Historical
Linguistic Assessment
Jeffrey Davis
As an alternative to spoken language, signed language has been ob-

served and documented for certain North American Indian groups (e.g.,
Davis 2005, 2006; Davis and Supalla 1995; Mallery 1880, 1881;
McKay-Cody 1997; Taylor 1978, 1997; Tomkins 1926; Umiker-Sebeok
and Sebeok 1978).1 The North American continent was once an area of
extreme linguistic and cultural diversity, with hundreds of distinct and
mutually unintelligible languages spoken by the native populations. For
example, Mithun (1999, 1) points out that “while the languages of
Europe are classified into just three families, Indo-European, Finno-
Ugric, and Basque, those of North America constitute over 50.”
The major published research on the languages of native North America
(reported in Campbell 2000 and Mithun 1999), early anthropological lin-
guistic fieldwork and descriptions (Kroeber 1958; Voegelin 1958; West
1960), and a survey of documentary materials from archival sources
(Davis 2006) indicate that signed language was used in varying degrees as
an independent communication system within most of the language fami-
lies indigenous to North America. For many generations, signed language
emerged as a way to make communication possible between individuals
and groups speaking many distinct and mutually unintelligible languages.
This chapter is a continuation of an earlier study reported in volume 12 of this

series. I would like to acknowledge the support of the National Anthropological
Archives, the Smithsonian Institution, and a National Endowment for the
Humanities and National Science Foundation Documenting Endangered
Languages fellowship (FN-50002-06). The results of the study reported here do
not necessarily reflect those of the Smithsonian Institution, National Endowment
for the Humanities, or National Science Foundation.
85
This was documented in numerous historical accounts, including the field-

work of nineteenth-century ethnologists and anthropologists, most no-
tably Boas (1890) and Mallery (1880, 1881), who were among the first
scholars to do fieldwork among American Indian groups.
This chapter focuses on previously collected lexical descriptions from
written, illustrated, and filmed sources of conventionalized signs that
were used among North American Indian groups for a variety of dis-
course purposes (reported in Davis 2006). The chief aims of the present
study are (1) to provide a preliminary assessment of historical related-
ness, language variation, and dialect differences based on lexical com-
parisons of signs used among North American Indians of the Great
Plains; (2) to compare the signs documented for North American Indians
with lexical descriptions and illustrations of American Sign Language
(ASL) from comparable historical periods; and (3) to point others to the
corpus of North American Indian signed language so that various lin-
guistic levels — from the phonological to the grammatical — can be fur-
ther studied and described. Documenting and describing a language are
enormous undertakings that are rendered urgent by the endangered sta-
tus of these signed language varieties. The study of indigenous signed
languages helps broaden our understanding of the cognitive and social
bases of human language and raises historical linguistic and sociolin-
guistic questions (e.g., about language origins, spread, attitude, contact,
change).
PREVIOUS STUDIES
I have previously reported on the documented cases of historical and

contemporary signed language use among North American Indian
groups, and some of these findings are summarized in the following sec-
tions (see Davis 2006 for further descriptions).2 The previously collected
historical linguistic and ethnographic documentation from archival
sources indicates that signed language was used across the major
American Indian cultural areas (e.g., the Southeast, Gulf Coast,
Southwest, Great Plains, Plateau/Great Basin, Northeast, Subarctic, and
Mesoamerican geographic areas; Campbell 2000; Davis 2005, 2006;
Mithun 1999). A number of volumes have been published on the tradi-
tional use of signed language among American Indians (most notably,
Clark 1885; Mallery 1881; Tomkins 1926; Umiker-Sebeok and Sebeok
86 : jeffrey davis
1978), and more recently, several publications have described both the
historical and contemporary use of signed language among Indian
groups (Davis 2005, 2006; Davis and Supalla 1995; Farnell 1995; Kelly
2004; Kelly and McGregor 2003; McKay-Cody 1997).
In the research literature, the historical varieties of indigenous signed
language specific to North America are sometimes collectively referred
to as “North American Indian Sign Language” (see Wurtzburg and
Campbell 1995). Historically, these varieties of signed language were
named in various ways: Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL), Indian Sign
Language, the Sign Language, and Indian Language of Signs. “Hand
talk” was the way that some American Indian groups commonly referred
to sign language (Tomkins 1926). In this chapter these terms are used in-
terchangeably depending on the historical context and sources that are
cited.
Early Anthropological Linguistic Fieldwork
The first works to describe the distinctive features of conventionalized

signed language among American Indians were published by researchers
(Kroeber 1958; Voegelin 1958; West 1960), who helped establish the dis-
cipline of anthropological linguistics. Based on these findings and other
historical accounts reported in the literature (cf. Campbell 2000; Davis
2005, 2006; Mithun 1999), linguistic variation was observed within and
between different North American Indian groups that used signed lan-
guage (e.g., not all of the members of the group may have signed, and
those who did sign may not have been equally fluent). Reportedly, the
more nomadic groups were the best signers; dialect differences were evi-
dent but did not seriously hinder communication; and signing was not
limited to intertribal ceremonial occasions but was also used in story-
telling and conversation within groups speaking the same language.
Moreover, signing occurred both with and without speech as an alterna-
tive to spoken language for Indians who were hearing and as a primary
language for those who were deaf. For further descriptions see Davis
(2005, 2006).
Contemporary Documentation and Description
Davis (2005, 2006), Davis and Supalla (1995), Farnell (1995), Gordon
(2005), Kelly (2004), Kelly and McGregor (2003), and McKay-Cody
(1997) have reported that the traditional ways of signing are currently
known primarily by hearing elders and some deaf members of several
North American Indian Signed Language Varieties : 87

different American Indian language groups. The number of signers is un-

known at this time, but due to a variety of sociocultural and historical
factors reported in these studies, traditional sign language use among
hearing Indians has been replaced by spoken English. Most of the deaf
members of these groups attend schools for deaf students and learn ASL
as a primary language. Thus, fewer hearing and deaf Indians are learn-
ing the traditional ways of signing, suggesting that these varieties of sign
language are currently endangered. Although greatly diminished from
once having been used among dozens of distinct Native American cul-
tural groups, contemporary sign language use has been reported (see
Davis 2006) within seven distinct spoken language groups, representing
four major spoken native language families:3 Algonquian (Blackfoot
Piegan, Northern Cheyenne), Athabaskan (Navajo Diné), Siouan
(Assiniboine, Crow, Sioux Lak(h)ota Dakota Nakota), and New
Mexican Pueblo Isolates (Keresan Keres). It has been reported (Davis
and Supalla 1995; Kelly and McGregor 2003) that some members of the
Navajo/Diné and Keresan groups use a signed language variety that is
distinct from those used by Plains cultural group members, primarily of
Algonquian and Siouan descent (Farnell 1995; Mithun 1999; McKay-
Cody 1997; West 1960).
Primary and Alternate Sign Language
Davis and Supalla (1995) and McKay-Cody (1997) studied the simi-
larities and differences between deaf and hearing Indian signers and be-
tween signing that occurs with or without speech. For example, the “al-
ternate sign systems” used by hearing Indians became a “primary sign
language” when acquired natively by deaf Indians. The linguistic evi-
dence suggests that alternate signs are used to varying degrees of profi-
ciency, ranging from those that accompany speech, to signing without
speech, to signing that functions similarly to a primary sign language.
Davis and Supalla (1995, 83–85) have proposed that (1) primary signed
languages have evolved within specific historical, social, and cultural
contexts and have been used across generations of signers (e.g., ASL,
French Sign Language, British Sign Language) and that (2) alternate sign
systems have been developed and used by individuals who are already
competent in spoken language (e.g., the highly elaborated and complex
sign system used historically by the Plains Indians of North America).
McKay-Cody (1997) has described what happened when the alternate
sign language traditionally used by hearing members of the Plains cul-
88 : jeffrey davis
tural groups was acquired as a primary sign language by members of the

group who are deaf. The deaf members of these native groups “seem to
gain a higher level of proficiency” when compared to members who are
hearing (ibid., 50). These findings suggest that the alternate sign lan-
guage becomes linguistically enriched when learned as a primary lan-
guage by members of these native communities who are deaf. Further
historical (diachronic) and contemporary (synchronic) comparative lin-
guistic analyses are needed to clarify these similarities and differences
and to assess the historical relatedness or unrelatedness among these
signed language varieties.
Plains Indian Sign Language
Previous anthropological linguistic field research showed that sign

language was used in varying degrees within most of the spoken lan-
guage families of Native North America and that the best-documented
cases involved members of the Plains Indian cultural and linguistic
groups (Kroeber 1958; Voegelin 1958; West 1960). Historically, the
Great Plains cultural area was centrally located on the North American
continent and spanned approximately one million square miles. Intensive
language and cultural contact occurred between the native peoples in-
habiting these areas (cf. Campbell 2000; Mithun 1999). It should be
pointed out that these cultural-linguistic boundaries are based on nu-
merous sociocultural, linguistic, and historical variables and do not
imply the existence of only a few sharply distinct ways of life on the con-
tinent (e.g., Washburn, in the Handbook of North American Indians
[1988, viii], states that “in reality, each group exhibits a unique combi-
nation of particular cultural features, while all neighboring peoples are
always similar in some ways and dissimilar in others”).4
Traditionally, Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL) is used within the
Plains cultural and linguistic groups of the United States and Canada
(Gordon 2005). Documentary materials on PISL are the primary source
of the lexical comparisons presented in this chapter. Davis (2006, 8) re-
ports that “historic and contemporary uses of signed language have been
documented in at least one dozen distinct North American language fam-
ilies (phyla)” and that “the archived data reveal that regardless of hearing
status, signing was used by members from approximately thirty-seven dis-
tinct American Indian spoken language groups.” Although greatly dimin-
ished from its former widespread use across the Great Plains, PISL has not
vanished. Gordon (2005) classifies PISL as a language that is distinct

from ASL. Today PISL is used within some native groups in storytelling,
rituals, legends, and prayers, as well as by American Indians who are
deaf (Davis 2005, 2006; Davis and Supalla 1995; Farnell 1995; Gordon
2005; Kelly 2004; Kelly and McGregor 2003; McKay-Cody 1997).
Origins and Spread
The origins of North American Indian signed language varieties re-

main uncertain. From the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, nu-
merous descriptive accounts of the signing of American Indians were
written by early European explorers who spent years in the area and col-
onizers who settled in North America (Mithun 1999). In their historical
study of “North American Indian Sign Language,” Wurtzburg and
Campbell (1995, 160) have defined “sign language” as “a conventional-
ized gesture language of the sort later attested among the Plains and
neighboring areas.” Goddard (1979) and Wurtzburg and Campbell
(1995) have made compelling cases for a preexistent, well-developed in-
digenous sign language that was used across the Gulf Coast–Texas–
northern Mexico area before European contact, and these scholars have
also discussed the pidgins, trade languages, and mixed systems used by
native groups. The generally accepted hypothesis among scholars (see
also Campbell 2000; Mithun 1999) is that North American Indian Sign
Language (Wurtzburg and Campbell’s designation) originated and spread
from the Gulf Coast, became the intertribal lingua franca of the Great
Plains, and spread throughout the Northwest Territories of the United
States and Canada.5 Along these lines, Taylor (1997, 275) proposes that
“trade may have been an important stimulus in the development of sign
language, and it was certainly an important factor in its diffusion after
the rise of horse nomadism.”
Evidence of a Historical Signed Lingua Franca
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, signed language

use among native groups was so widespread that scholars of this period
considered it to be a lingua franca. In other words, signing was used be-
tween indigenous groups who did not otherwise share a common spoken
language (Clark 1885; Scott 1931; Mallery 1880; Tomkins 1926).
Previously, documentation was made by some of the philologists and
ethnologists who worked at the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of
Ethnology and were among the first scholars to do fieldwork with
American Indian groups (most notably Boas 1890 and Mallery 1880).
90 : jeffrey davis
The previous documentation occurred before the decline in the use of in-
digenous sign language due in large part to its replacement by English as
a lingua franca (Davis 2005, 2006). Following Mallery’s seminal re-
search on this subject at the Smithsonian Institution (1880–1900), a fifty-
year time period elapsed before additional peer-reviewed studies of
Indian Sign Language were resumed and published by qualified and rec-
ognized researchers (e.g., Kroeber 1958; West 1960; Voegelin 1958).6
These early scholars laid the groundwork for the consideration of Indian
Sign Language as a preexistent, full-fledged language (Davis 2006).
Kroeber (1958) and Voegelin (1958) published the first scholarly
works describing the conventionalized signs used by American Indians in
terms of distinctive features similar to the sounds of spoken language.
This was followed by a two-volume doctoral dissertation written by
LaMont West, one of Carl Voegelin’s students (1960). Kroeber, Voegelin,
and West developed an elaborate transcription system and phonemic-like
inventory for Indian Sign Language of the Great Plains cultural area and
were the first scholars known to describe the distinctive phonetic features
of a sign language in terms of handshape, place of articulation, and
movement. For example, handshape features were described as open,
closed, fingers extended, straight, curved, and so on; different points on
the body were considered places of articulation; and the movement pat-
terns of the hands were described in detail (e.g., up, down, left, right, re-
peated, straight lines, curves, circles) and included one hand acting alone,
as well as one stationary and the other active, with both hands moving
in parallel or interacting.
The published research on Indian Sign Language helped inform and
was cited in the seminal work of some of the first signed language lin-
guists (e.g., Stokoe 1960, 1972; Battison 1978/2003). However, the same
biases that delayed the recognition and academic acceptance of ASL as a
distinct language also appear to have contributed to the oversight and
neglected study of sign language among American Indian groups
(Baynton 2002). There has been a general lack of understanding about
the nature and structure of indigenous sign language even though it has
been observed and reported since the 1500s (Davis 2005, 2006). Perhaps
this area of sign language studies has been neglected for the past several
decades due to the understandable need to provide linguistic descriptions
of the primary sign languages of Deaf communities. A review of the pre-
vious linguistic and ethnohistorical studies of indigenous sign language
will bridge some of the gaps in the research, encourage further studies of

this subject, and draw attention to this little-known and often over-
looked part of Native American heritage and sign language studies.
West’s Studies
One of the major contributions of West’s (1960) research was the ob-
servation that signed language use exhibited the same duality of pattern-
ing as spoken language. In addition to the structural properties and pro-
duction of sign language, West and his colleagues carefully examined the
lexicon, semantics, and possible origins of the system.7 During the late
1950s West conducted extensive anthropological linguistic fieldwork
among Plains tribal groups over a period of several years and reported
that a number of Native American groups used different varieties and di-
alects of sign language. His study of more than one hundred American
Indian informants reported that 87 percent were fluent in sign language
(1960, 2, 62–68). Mithun (1999, 293) writes that “when La Mont West
visited Plains communities in 1956 he found signing still practiced, par-
ticularly on intertribal ceremonial occasions but also in storytelling and
conversation, even among speakers of the same language.”
Taylor (1997, 276) points out that West’s findings show that, by the
1950s, sign language was known primarily by the elders (77 percent of
West’s informants were older than sixty years of age, including 18 per-
cent who were past eighty) and that the shift away from the use of sign
language as an alternate to spoken language was due largely to its re-
placement by English as a lingua franca (55 percent of West’s informants
were fluent in English, whereas only 18 percent knew more than one of
the Indian languages). See West (1960, 2, 62–68) for a summary of these
findings.
West’s fieldwork focused primarily on groups of the northern Plains
cultural area, but he reported that dialect groups also lived beyond this
geographic area. West identified a major dialect split between the
Northern Plains and native communities beyond this region: (1) a North
Central Plains dialect referred to as Plains Standard and (2) a Far
Northern Plains dialect referred to as Far Northern or Storytelling di-
alect, which was used mainly in the Canadian provinces of Alberta,
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and British Columbia. More recent studies
(e.g., Davis 2006; Mithun 1999; McKay-Cody 1997) have also suggested
that different varieties and dialects of sign language were used among
Indian groups and that these were distinct from the variety of ASL used
in North American Deaf communities.
92 : jeffrey davis
THE PRESENT STUDY
Comparative historical linguistic analyses are necessary before we can

reach conclusions about historical relatedness and the outcomes of lan-
guage contact between the signed language varieties used by American
Indians and individuals who are deaf. To determine whether these vari-
eties are historically related, this chapter presents a long-overdue com-
parative assessment of the sign lexicon used by North American Indians;
it also compares North American Indian signs with lexical descriptions
and illustrations of ASL from comparable historical periods. The study
of lexical similarity can help us assess historical relatedness, and there
are several important terminological and methodological considerations
for the present work.
Terminology and Methodology
Linguistic researchers who are concerned with the historical (i.e., di-
achronic) relationship between languages commonly carry out studies of
lexical similarity. This approach is useful in determining whether lan-
guage varieties share the same historical roots or can be traced to a com-
mon parent language or lineage. Historical linguistic researchers distin-
guish two main types of historical relatedness (cf. Campbell 2004;
Parkhurst and Parkhurst 2003). First, genetically related languages have
developed from a common ancestor and are classified as members of the
same language family. A second type of historical relationship is lexical
similarity due to language contact and lexical borrowing. In other words,
two languages may have borrowed from each other over time, but their
origins can be traced to two distinct original languages (cf. Campbell
2004).
The study of lexical similarity and cognates offers important insights
into historical relatedness. As defined by Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams
(2007, 480) “cognates are words in related languages that developed
from the same ancestral root, such as English horn and Latin cornu,” and,
as they point out, “Cognates often, but not always, have the same mean-
ing in different languages.” For example, “it is possible that at one time
two words may have been historically very similar, but with the natural
changes that occur over time the two words have evolved into forms that
are so distinct as not to be easily recognizable” (Parkhurst and Parkhurst
2003, 1). Another example of this principle comes from Campbell (2004),
who points out that the English word eight and the Spanish equivalent

ocho do not look or sound at all alike, yet both words can be traced to
the Latin word octo. Monolingual English or Spanish speakers are un-
likely to recognize that such words are historically related.
When comparing two languages to determine historical relatedness,
one must take great care to sort out instances in which the lexical simi-
larity between words may be coincidental rather than due to historical
relatedness (Guerra Currie, Meier, and Walters 2002; Parkhurst and
Parkhurst 2003). In comparing sign languages, Guerra Currie et al.
(2002, 224) distinguish two historical causes of lexical similarity (i.e., a
genetic relationship and lexical borrowing) and two factors that are non-
historical (i.e., chance and shared symbolism). To illustrate this distinc-
tion between spoken languages, Parkhurst and Parkhurst (2003, 2) use
the example of madre in Spanish and mae in Thai. Both words share the
same meaning and appear to be similar lexically (a natural sound change
could have deleted the intermediate consonants). In this case, the lexical
similarity is based on chance or coincidence and not historical related-
ness or lexical borrowing (Campbell 2004). This distinction “does not
deny that the words for mother and father around the world tend to use
those sounds first articulated by infants, nor does it deny that the reason
for chance similarity in sign languages is primarily based on iconicity”
(Parkhurst and Parkhurst (2003, 2).
Researchers in the field of historical linguistics recognize that these
terms and distinctions may be difficult to define or apply in practice.
According to Campbell (2000, 7), a language family “is a group of ge-
netically related languages, ones that share a linguistic kinship by virtue
of having developed from a common earlier ancestor.” The term dialect
“means only a variety (regional or social) of a language mutually intelli-
gible (however difficult this concept may be to define or apply in prac-
tice) with other dialects/varieties of the same language” (ibid.). Simply
defined, mutual intelligibility means that speakers or signers of different
dialects and varieties understand each other. Clearly these terms are far
from unambiguous.
As Hoyer (2004, 7) points out, “one problem is that sometimes mu-
tually intelligible varieties are defined as different languages for histori-
cal or political reasons.” For example, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish
are considered different languages, although they are generally mutually
intelligible among native speakers. Conversely, in many instances, a
speaker of a standard language does not understand a dialect of the same
language (e.g., varieties of English spoken in the southern United States
94 : jeffrey davis
or northern United Kingdom). Hoyer (ibid., 8) also cites other problems

with the criterion of mutual intelligibility, such as the methods used to
assess the degree of mutual understanding (via written or spoken lan-
guage modalities), and reminds us “that these notions are not purely lin-
guistic; they are also influenced by political and cultural factors.”
Campbell, Parkhurst and Parkhurst, and other researchers sometimes
use the terms historically related and genetically related synonymously
to mean two languages that can be traced to the same parent language.
However, a review of the research literature indicates that there are two
main types of historical relationship between languages: (1) genetic re-
latedness (i.e., coming from the same parent language), and (2) lexical
similarity or relatedness due to borrowing (i.e., historically two lan-
guages may have borrowed from each other, but their origins can be
traced to two distinct original languages). The study of lexical similar-
ity is considered a major way to distinguish and elucidate these differ-
ences.
Methodologies Considered and Employed in the Present Study
Several researchers have compared sign languages to determine whether

they are historically related (e.g., Guerra Currie, Meier, and Walters 2002;
Kyle and Woll 1985; McKee and Kennedy 2000; Parkhurst and Parkhurst
2003; West 1960; Woodward 1978). It is recognized that iconicity and in-
dexicality features may potentially skew the results of lexical similarity
studies of sign languages, and this is a major theoretical issue that signed
language researchers continue to deal with in various ways. For example,
to control for iconicity effects, some researchers use word lists with a lower
potential for iconicity. In the research studies cited here, signed language
researchers have proposed that a relatively high base level of lexical simi-
larity — generally 80 percent — is necessary to determine that two lexical
items can be considered to be cognates of genetically or historically related
sign languages.
Woll, Sutton-Spence, and Elton (2001, 22) note that the following
standards are generally applied to determine whether languages are sep-
arate languages or dialects of the same language: “If 80 percent or more
of the words or signs are similar, then the variants are dialects of the
same language. If 36 percent to 80 percent of the words or signs are sim-
ilar, then the two languages belong to the same family. If the similarity is
12 percent to 35 percent, then the languages belong to families of the
same stock. If it is under 12 percent then they are unrelated.”

However, when Kyle and Woll (1985) compared four European sign
languages that they believed were not related to each other, they found
that 40 percent of the signs in the four languages were quite similar or
identical. Woll et al. (2001, 23) suggest that a higher level of lexical sim-
ilarity between unrelated sign languages is “caused by the presence of vi-
sually motivated (iconic) signs in the languages which exhibited similar-
ity independently of historical links” and that “this feature of sign
language will always cause problems for the classification of sign lan-
guages, unless such examples can be factored out.”
Along similar lines, in a study to determine probable historical relat-
edness, Parkhurst and Parkhurst (2003) first compared four European
sign languages that are not known to be related to each other (i.e., those
of Spain, Northern Ireland, Finland, and Bulgaria); they then compared
a second sample of sign language dialects from five major Spanish cities:
Madrid, La Coruña, Granada, Valencia, and Barcelona. They found that
comparing lexical items chosen for “low potential of iconicity” resulted
in significantly lower similarity scores among unrelated languages than
did word lists of basic vocabulary of “highly iconic signs.” Parkhurst
and Parkhurst (ibid., 3) point out that “iconic signs look or act like the
thing they represent,” thus skewing the results of cognate studies, but ac-
knowledge that “the vast majority of signs in a sign language have some
iconic reference.” They propose that cognate studies use word lists that
comprise signs that are “low in iconicity.”8 Considering the highly
visual-gestural nature of sign language, sorting out the iconic from the
noniconic may be a somewhat arbitrary or subjective endeavor, and
overcompensating for potential visual symbolism might also skew the re-
sults. Woll et al. (2001) have also reported that the results of lexical sim-
ilarity studies may be skewed by limiting the comparisons to small vo-
cabulary lists of signs (e.g., fifty to one hundred items) and stress “the
need to recognize that some dialects of different sign languages may be
more similar to each other than other dialects” (23), thus the need to
take language variation into account. Moreover, like other language phe-
nomena, the feature of iconicity is perhaps best considered along a con-
tinuum.
Parkhurst and Parkhurst (2003) have proposed that a higher standard
is needed to determine the number of cognates in historically related sign
languages; they have also suggested that the thresholds may need to be
raised an additional 5 to 10 percentage points (i.e., 91 percent similarity
96 : jeffrey davis
indicates the same language) to account for the iconicity factor. They
also state that such adjustments may not be necessary if lexical compar-
isons are limited to noniconic vocabulary. In other words, if highly iconic
words are avoided, 81 to 90 percent similarity likely indicates that the
languages are genetically and historically related. In their cognate stud-
ies of sign languages, Parkhurst and Parkhurst (2003) set the following
thresholds:
0–40 percent similarity means separate languages

41–60 percent similarity means separate languages in the same family
61–70 percent similarity means inconclusive (likely to be different lan-
guages)
71–80 percent similarity means inconclusive (likely to be the same lan-
guage)
81 percent similarity means they are the same language
Parkhurst and Parkhurst (12) use the “inconclusive” categories to in-

dicate that the “similarity shows inconclusive results and other testing is
necessary” to determine whether the sign languages in question are ge-
netically related (i.e., the same language or different ones). That is, larger
data sets should be studied. Again, a relatively high baseline is needed to
determine the degree of similarity and is congruent with lexical similar-
ity studies reported by the other signed language linguists cited through-
out this section.
Due to the greater potential for shared symbolism (i.e., iconicity)
among unrelated sign languages, other researchers (e.g., Guerra Currie,
Meier, and Walters 2002, 233) have also suggested the need to follow a
relatively high baseline level of similarity and cite Woll and Kyle’s (1985)
80 percent baseline. In their study of Mexican Sign Language (la Lengua
de Señas Mexicana, or LSM), Guerra Currie et al. (ibid.) focused on
LSM tokens that are proper nouns but did not exclude some signs that
might be considered to have shared symbolism.9 With this approach,
signs that may be considered somewhat iconic are not excluded but are
simply coded as having “shared symbolism.” See Guerra Currie et al.
(2002), Parkhurst and Parkhurst (2003), Woll and Kyle (1985), and Woll
et al. (2001) for more discussion of methods of comparing historically
related and unrelated sign languages.
In short, the results of lexical similarity comparisons may be useful in
assessing degrees of genetic relatedness; however, such scores alone are

not adequate to determine historical relatedness. Other major factors to

consider include historical change, language contact, and lexical bor-
rowing. A sizeable linguistic corpus is also needed to ensure greater ac-
curacy of comparisons. Most lexical similarity studies of sign languages
have used relatively small vocabulary lists (e.g., groups of fifty to two
hundred words). The largest-known published study of lexical similarity
to date (i.e., Guerra Currie et al. 2002) examined 915 sign tokens from
Mexican Sign Language that generated 367 pairwise comparisons with
three other sign languages (French Sign Language, Spanish Sign
Language, and Japanese Sign Language). Guerra Currie et al. (ibid., 228)
write that, “in analyzing only signs with approximately identical mean-
ings and similar forms, we ultimately provide a conservative estimate of
the strength and nature of similarities between the languages examined,
especially those 38 percent lexical similarity between LSM and French
Sign Language (with known historical contact and lexical borrowing)
and 23 percent lexical similarity between LSM and Japanese Sign
Language (with no known historical contact or lexical borrowing).
A Corpus of Lexical Descriptions
The language corpus (more than 8,000 lexical descriptions and illus-
trations of American Indian signs) that is the focus of this chapter offers
a unique opportunity to provide a linguistic assessment of the signed lan-
guage varieties that were historically used by American Indian groups
and Deaf communities (see also Davis 2006). The sources for the lexical
descriptions used here are highlighted in Table 1. For the purpose of this
study, 1,500 American Indian and ASL signs were examined:
• One thousand previously collected lexical descriptions and illus-

trations of American Indian signs from five time periods (1800s,
1820s, 1920s, 1930s, and 2000s) were examined; the comparison
of American Indian signs from these five historical periods with
ASL of the early 1900s generated 797 pairwise comparisons.
• Five hundred previously photographed ASL signs (Long 1918)
were also examined and compared with contemporary ASL
(2000) to establish a baseline of lexical similarity and historical
relatedness.
Thus, the present study generated 1,297 pairwise comparisons of PISL

and ASL from a sign vocabulary base of 1,500 items.
98 : jeffrey davis
table 1. Data Sources for the Lexical Comparisons
Number of
Sources Date Lexical Descriptions Format
Dunbar 1801 50 written

S. H. Long 1823 104 written
J. S. Long 1918 500 written and photographed
Tomkins 1926 500 written and illustrated
Sanderville 1934 200 filmed
Weatherwax 2002 150 filmed
It should be noted that Stephen H. Long and John S. Long are two dif-
ferent individuals from different historical periods and are not known to
be related. Stephen H. Long (1823) provided one of the first compila-
tions of written descriptions of Indian signs in the early nineteenth cen-
tury, and John S. Long (1918) published the first dictionary of ASL with
written descriptions and photographic illustrations in the early twentieth
century.
Standards
The following standards and procedures were adhered to in the pres-

ent study:
• Signs in the language corpus with greater potential for lexical

transparency (i.e., iconic or indexic) were not used for lexical
comparisons (e.g., personal pronouns and numbers).
• Signs that were specific to the historical-cultural context during
the time of the original documentation were also excluded (e.g.,
sign names for various Indian nations and the tools, weaponry,
and animals that were hunted during the time period in which the
descriptions were made, for example, bison, turkey, white tail
deer, and dung fowl).
• The original lexical descriptions that are the focus of this study
were collected from archival sources over a fifteen-year period
(1990–2005). To ensure that the highest standards have been fol-
lowed throughout the collection and digitization processes, I was
assisted by archivists and researchers at the National Archives
and the Smithsonian Institution and collaborated with fellow re-
searchers (e.g., Sam Supalla and Melanie McKay-Cody).

• During subsequent stages of data collection, digitization, classifi-

cation, verification, and translation (2002–2005), I was assisted
by several deaf graduate and undergraduate students.
• In the process of selecting, digitally capturing, and coding the lex-
ical descriptions (2004–2005), I was assisted by a deaf graduate
student.
• A threshold of 80 percent similarity or greater between signs was
used to determine whether the variants are dialects of the same
language (i.e., genetically and historically related). This reflects
the higher thresholds of similarity that are necessary when com-
paring sign languages.
• The standard followed is that, if less than 80 percent of the sign
comparisons are similar or identical, then the two languages are
considered separate (i.e., not genetically related).
• Lexical descriptions considered to be gestures have also been ex-
cluded in these comparisons; this determination is based on pub-
lished criteria to distinguish gestures from signs (cf. McNeil 1992,
2000).10
Sample Illustrations and Summary of Coding Procedures
The coding procedures followed in this study are based on similar cri-
teria set forth by Guerra Currie et al. (2002, 227). Signs were coded as
similarly articulated if they shared approximately the same meaning and
differed according to only one major sign language parameter (e.g.,
handshape, movement, place of articulation). This designation also in-
cluded signs that were articulated similarly or identically with regard to
all three major parameters. Although signs coded as similarly articulated
exhibited some differences in orientation, orientation was not considered
a major formational parameter (cf. ibid., 228).
Moreover, the use of photographs, illustrations, and written descrip-
tions to compare sign languages entails certain limitations. However,
these are the only data sources for lexical comparisons of nineteenth-
and early twentieth-century sign languages. Digitized motion picture
films from the 1930s obtained from archival sources (cf. Figure 4) were
also considered in this study. The Sanderville and Weatherwax compar-
isons were based on filmed and videotaped lexical data.
Digitized samples of original pen-and-ink illustrations of Indian signs
from the Garrick Mallery files (ca. 1880, MS 2372) in the National
Anthropological Archives at the Smithsonian Institution illustrate the
100 : jeffrey davis

figure 1 Illustrations of PSL signs coded as similar to ASL. [see, on, enter,
child]1
conventionalized signs used by North American Indians and demon-

strate how the coding procedures were applied in this study. To the best
of my knowledge, the rare and fragile pen-and-ink illustrations shown in
these figures have not been previously published. To help determine lex-
ical similarity based on written descriptions, more than one written
source was consulted and also compared with illustrated, photographed,
and filmed sources. Figure 1 shows illustrations of Indian signs that were
coded as similar to ASL.
sample written descriptions

For the lexical comparisons in this study, written descriptions were
also examined. For example:
see. “Bring right 2 hand to opposite eyes, and the two fingers should point
in the direction one is looking” (Tomkins 1926, 51).
entering (a house or lodge). “The left hand is held with the back upward,
and the right hand also with the back up, is passed in a curvilinear direction,
down under the other, so as to rub against its palm, then up on the other side
of it. The left hand here represents the low door of the skin lodge, and the
right, the man stooping down to pass in” (Long 1823, 158).
examples of signs coded as lexically

different from ASL
Indian signs that differed in more than one major parameter were con-
sidered to be distinct from ASL. Samples of these signs are presented in
Figure 2.
1. Generally, arrows indicate the direction of movement; X marks the end

point of articulation; and shaded handshapes show transitional movements (al-
though this may vary somewhat between illustrations).

figure 2 PSL signs coded as lexically different from ASL [good, long-time,
brothersister, know-not]2
The following written descriptions are examples of signs coded as lex-

ically different:
Indian sign for good: “Hold the flat right hand, back up, in front of and
close to left breast, pointing to left; move hand briskly well out to front and
right, keeping it in a horizontal plane” (Tomkins 1926, 31).
ASL sign for good: “Place the end of the palm against the mouth; then bring
it down against the open left hand so the back of the right hand rests on the
palm of the left. In common use the latter part of the sign is omitted and the
hand is simply thrown forward from the mouth” (Long 1918, 107).
Although good is coded as lexically different (in location and move-

ment), the PISL sign for good is comparable to the two-handed ASL sign
for nice, clean, pure: “Place the right open hand upon the open left,
crosswise and palm to palm, and letting the right hand rest near the ball
of the thumb; pass the right hand along the length of the left” (ibid., 121).
In ASL, long-time is a compound sign: long: “placing the forefinger
of the right ‘G’ hand lengthwise near the wrist of the extended left arm,
draw it up the full length of the arm to the shoulder” (ibid., 109); time:
“crook the forefinger of the right ‘G’ hand and with the tip end tap the
back of the left ‘S’ hand” (ibid., 126). brother and sister are also ASL
compound signs (boy same and girl same). In ASL, know, which
is “tap the forehead with the end of the hand” (ibid., 56), can be negated
(not-know) if the sign is produced with a movement toward, then away
from the forehead.
2. Note the similarity between the sign glossed good and the ASL sign for
nice (although these were coded as different); know-not could also be glossed
as speak-not.
102 : jeffrey davis

The Indian sign for know-not in Figure 2 is a compound sign (speak

not). The Indian sign for know is more commonly described as “hold
right hand, back up, close to breast; sweep hand outwards and slightly
upwards, turning hand by wrist action until palm nearly up; thumb and
index extended, other fingers closed, thumb and index horizontal, index
pointing nearly to left, thumb pointing to front” (Tomkins 1926, 37).
These examples demonstrate the issue of following written lexical de-
scriptions alone from a single source. In this study, illustrations, photo-
graphs, and films from multiple sources were used to make lexical com-
parisons.
Description of Historical Sources for the Lexical Comparisons
I first examined 50 descriptions of Indian signs originally published by

William Dunbar (1801) and 104 Indian sign descriptions from Stephen
H. Long’s (1823) account of an official expedition to the Rocky
Mountains. Subsequent to their original printings, both previously pub-
lished historical accounts (Dunbar and Long) were reprinted collectively
(with the omission of approximately ten descriptions that the editor con-
sidered redundant) as the “Indian Language of Signs” in the American
Annals of the Deaf and Dumb (Gallaudet 1852). These historical publi-
cations present descriptions of the signs reportedly used by American
Indian groups of the early 1800s. They also provide discussion of some
similarities with the signs used by deaf people of that historical period.
In the present study, lexical comparisons are made between descriptions
and illustrations of signed language varieties reportedly used by deaf
people of several different historical periods (1800s–2000). Table 1 lists
the lexical descriptions and data sources used in this study.
The earliest known descriptions and illustrations of signs used by
American Indians were made in the early 1800s, during the first official
expeditions to the western territories of what is now the United States.
They formed the basis of a paper titled “Sign Language of the Indian
Nations to the West of the Mississippi River,” which was presented by
Thomas Jefferson, president of the American Philosophical Society
(Dunbar 1801). Descriptions were given for more than fifty signs used
by members of the Indian nations. Jefferson made this presentation in
January 1801, one month prior to his presidential inaugural address. The
title and content of his lecture reflect the fact that Jefferson had an en-
thusiastic interest in the subject and realized the relevance of the sign lan-
guage used by the Indian nations. Although previously published in the

1800s, the address has long been out of print. The original copy of
Dunbar’s (1801) paper and original pen-and-ink drawings are from the
Garrick Mallery files in the National Anthropological Archives at the
Smithsonian Institution (ca. 1880, MS 2372).
The Natural Language of Signs
The next official U.S. expedition following that by Lewis and Clark
was led in 1819 by Maj. Stephen H. Long of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and went as far as the Rocky Mountains (Davis 2005, 2006). The vital
communication role that Indian Sign Language played is described in the
published account of the expedition (Long 1823, 378–94), which in-
cluded more than one hundred descriptions of Indian signs. Thomas H.
Gallaudet, cofounder of the first school for deaf students in the United
States in 1817, used these early descriptive accounts of Indian signs to
make a case for “the Natural Language of Signs” for teaching and com-
municating with people who are deaf.
Gallaudet’s first published papers advocated the use of the natural lan-
guage of signs to teach children who were deaf. In 1848, he published an
essay that included detailed descriptions of some of the signs used by the
“aboriginal Indians” taken from Long’s (1823) account. It is clear from
his writings that Gallaudet considered Indian Sign Language, like the
sign language of deaf people, to be a natural occurrence. Historical
records indicate that frequent contact occurred between signing Native
American and deaf groups (Mallery 1880; McKay-Cody 1997).
Gallaudet’s attention to Indian Sign Language in these early publications
and the dissemination of descriptions of Indian signs to educators of deaf
people through the American Annals for the Deaf and Dumb (1823–
1890, vols. 1–35) make it plausible that during this period American
Indian signs were introduced to people who were deaf. However, such
claims remain speculative at this point. See Nover (2000) for more dis-
cussion of nineteenth-century authors (e.g., Fay 1874, 1890; Rae 1852;
Tylor 1878; Mallery 1882) who provided detailed descriptions and com-
parisons of ASL signs and the “Indian Language of Signs.”
Early Descriptions of American Sign Language
In 1910, J. Schuyler Long, long-time principal at the Iowa School for

the Deaf, published one of the earliest-known compilations of ASL lexi-
cal descriptions, which also included 500 photographic illustrations.
Long’s “manual of signs” was first published in its entirety in 1910 and
104 : jeffrey davis

included 1,063 root signs; in 1918, after Long’s death, it was republished
by Gallaudet College. By 1963, his work, titled The Sign Language: A
Manual of Signs (and subtitled Being a descriptive vocabulary of signs
used by the Deaf of the United States and Canada), had been reprinted
nine times.
Reference to Indian Sign Language is noticeably absent from J. S.
Long’s manual. However, it is known that he corresponded with both
Mallery and Scott, the preeminent scholars of Indian Sign Language of
the time. Long and Scott apparently held very different perspectives on
sign language, as is evident from an article reprinted in the Kentucky
Standard (ca. 1930) that had originally appeared in the Iowa Hawkeye.
In this newspaper article, Hugh Scott (ca. 1930, 4) proposed that Indian
Sign Language be used as a form of international communication. Scott
described its role: “Before the coming of the white man, [it served as] the
arbiter between peace and war and the means of spreading intertribal
culture.” He also wrote that Indian Sign Language was “subject to all the
general laws of linguistic science save those of sound and differs from
vocal speech mainly in that it makes appeal to the human brain through
the eye rather than the ear” (ibid.). In the 1930 Kentucky Standard
newspaper article, Scott responded to J. S. Long: “You know we have in-
vented some 300 artificial languages like Esperanto etc., for international
communication, not one of which has been successful because the peo-
ple will not use them.”
Hugh Scott was one of the progenitors of PISL as learned interna-
tionally by the Boy Scouts. Long sent Scott a copy of his Sign Language
(1910) and wrote to convince him of the “value of the sign language of
the deaf as a universal language.” Scott believed that the sign language
of deaf people would not capture the interest of the Boy Scouts as would
the sign language of the Indians. Concerning this, J. S. Long listed sev-
eral “disadvantages of the Indian sign language as compared with that of
the deaf”:
Romantic interest evidently blinds the judgment in this case. How the
language of a primitive of civilization can become a universal lan-
guage is hard to understand. Science, literature, commerce and reli-
gion are all foreign to the Indian’s experience. What signs can he have
to express the thoughts of a cultivated people in connection with
them? As a universal language the Indian signs may serve the boy
minds of scouts, but as a universal language it will go the way of

Esperanto and its kind [reprinted from the Iowa Hawkeye in the
Kentucky Standard (4, ca. 1930).
Clearly, Scott and Long held vastly different positions on this subject.
Central to these differences were issues of language status, universality,
and the iconicity of sign language. They were men of their times, and
their writings reflect certain biases. Scott believed that others would not
be interested in learning the sign language of deaf people. Long advo-
cated that the sign language of those who are deaf was superior to the
alternate sign language of the American Indians, a language he consid-
ered to be the consequence of a “primitive civilization.”
RESULTS
Establishing a Baseline of Lexical Similarity for Historical

Relatedness
The focus of this chapter is not a diachronic study of ASL; however,

John S. Long’s (1918) Sign Language is a useful starting point for making
lexical comparisons with the earliest-known descriptions of Indian sign
lexicon (i.e., Dunbar 1801; Stephen Long 1823). Comprising 1,000 writ-
ten descriptions and 500 photographs of ASL signs, J. S. Long’s easily ac-
cessible Sign Language is the earliest-known such compilation. In order to
establish a baseline of lexical similarity, I first compared his photographs
and descriptions with contemporary ASL. Following the coding proce-
dures and criteria established for this study, I was able to code 465 of the
500 photographs and descriptions (93 percent) as similar or identical to
contemporary ASL signs. These results are summarized in Table 2.
Ninety-three percent is a very high rate of lexical similarity and is con-
gruent with lexical comparisons of the same language (i.e., historically
and genetically related). Frishberg (1975) and Woodward (1978), among
table 2. Summary of Similarly Articulated Signs for ASL (Long 1918) and
Contemporary ASL
Similarly Articulated Signs

Pairwise Comparison Total Sign Pairs and Similarity Percentages
ASL (Long 1918) compared 500 465 (93 percent)

with contemporary ASL
106 : jeffrey davis

others, have described language-internal historical change in ASL. The

comparison of lexical similarity presented in Table 2 also takes into ac-
count historical changes that have occurred in ASL (cf. Valli and Lucas
2000, 170–72).
Historically, some two-handed ASL signs have become one-handed
signs and vice versa. The following examples of historical change appear
in J. S. Long (1918). In that work, father and mother are described
and photographed as two-handed signs: “With the fingers closed and
thumb extended, place thumb at the right side of the forehead [at the
right cheek for mother] and at right angles to it; with a slightly twisting
motion, bring hand away, opening fingers and turning palm upward; at
the same time bring the left hand up similarly and place parallel to the
right as if lifting up a babe” (ibid., 36–37). Assimilation (i.e., over time,
the handshape of one hand comes to resemble that of another) is also
evident in the data (e.g., the dominant hand becomes the same as the pas-
sive hand in son, daughter, brother, sister, husband, wife, and
hope).
Changes in the location of a sign also commonly occur over time (e.g.,
for home, the initial place of articulation has shifted from the mouth to
the cheek; don’t care was formerly articulated at the forehead instead
of the nose; honor is now produced in the neutral space in front of the
body instead of at the forehead; for picture, the initial contact is in front
of the face instead of at the side of the face).
Comparisons of the Earliest Indian Sign Descriptions and ASL
Next I examined the earliest-known descriptions of Indian signs from

Dunbar (1801) and Long (1823), which were also compiled into one list
and published as the “Indian Language of Signs” in the American Annals
of the Deaf and Dumb (Gallaudet 1852). The combined descriptions
from Dunbar and Long covered 154 different signs. After the exclusion of
the signs mentioned in the methodology section, eighty-five different sign
pairs were available for comparison. Of the fifty-three sign pairs from S.
Long’s (1823) descriptions, twenty-nine (55 percent) were coded as simi-
lar or identical to ASL. Of the thirty-two from Dunbar (1801), twelve (38
percent) were coded as similar or identical to ASL. Taken together, the
Indian and ASL signs showed a similarity of 48 percent (41 out of 85).
The results of these pairwise comparisons are summarized in Table 3.
The percentages of similarity in these pairwise comparisons indicate
separate languages (i.e., unlikely to be genetically related). However,

table 3. Summary of Similarly Articulated Signs between the Dunbar/Long

Corpus and ASL

S. Long (1823) corpus 53 29 (55 percent)

compared with ASL
(J. Long 1918)
Dunbar (1801) corpus 32 12 (38 percent)
compared with ASL
(J. Long 1918)
S. Long (1823); Dunbar 85 41 (48 percent)
(1801); ASL (1918)
55 percent is a relatively high degree of lexical similarity and suggests

possible contact and borrowing between the languages (cf. Parkhurst
and Parkhurst 2003 12; Woll et al. 2001, 22). Because the 170 compar-
isons in Table 3 represent a small language sample, more sign-pair com-
parisons are needed before firmer conclusions can be drawn. Based on
the historical evidence, however, it is highly probable that lexical bor-
rowing occurred as a consequence of language contact between native
groups of American Indians and individuals who were deaf, especially in
view of the fact that, during this period, the original descriptions of
Indian signs were distributed to educators of deaf people around the
country through the American Annals of the Deaf (1848, vol. 1, through
1890, vol. 35). The illustrations in Figure 3 (alike, yes, exchange, sun)
are examples of PISL signs that are lexically similar to ASL signs.
As the original pen-and-ink illustrations in Figure 3 show, certain
Indian signs are lexically similar to ASL, such as alike (also used to
mean “married”), yes (also used to indicate ‘truth”), and exchange.
The Indian sign for “sun” is comparable to ASL sunrise/sunset and
oversleep. The following written descriptions are from Dunbar (1801)
and S. Long (1823):
“same or similar (to what went before) — Place the two fore fingers
parallel to each other and push them forward a little” (Dunbar 1801, 1).
“truth — The fore finger passed, in the attitude of pointing, from the
mouth forward in a line curving a little upward, the other fingers
being carefully closed;” and “lie — The fore finger and middle fingers
extended, passed two or three times from the mouth forward: they are
108 : jeffrey davis

figure 3 Additional PSL signs lexically similar to ASL signs [alike, yes, ex-
change, sun]
joined at the mouth, but separate as they depart from it, indicating
that the words go in different directions” (S. Long 1823, 160).
“sun — The fore finger and thumb are brought together at [the] tips,
so as to form a circle, and held up toward the sun’s track. To indicate
any particular time of the day, the hand with the sign of the sun, is
stretched out toward the east horizon, and then gradually elevated, to
show the ascent of that luminary, until the hand arrives in the proper
directions, to indicate the part of the heaven in which the sun will be
at the given time” (ibid., 157).
“exchange — The two fore fingers are extended perpendicularly, and

the hands are then passed by each other transversely in front of the
breast, so as nearly to exchange positions” (ibid., 160).
comparison of written descriptions

of lexically similar signs
Indian sign: “now (or at present) — The two hands forming each a
hollow and brought near each other and put into a tremulous motion
upwards and downwards” (Dunbar 1801, 7).
ASL sign: “now, present — Place the open hands pointing outward,
palms up, in front, about the waist line; drop them a little and rather
quickly” (J. Long 1918, 129).
Indian sign: “done, finished — The hands placed edge up and down
parallel to each other, the right hand without, which later is drawn
back as cutting something” (Dunbar 1801, 8).
ASL sign: “complete, finish (bring an end to anything) — Place right

‘B’ hand with lower edge at right angles across the top edge of left ‘B’

near the wrist; push it along the edge of the hand till it reaches the
end, then ‘chop’ it off” (J. Long 1918, 92).
PISL/ASL Comparisons of Early Twentieth-Century

Descriptions
William Tomkins (1926) published a dictionary titled Universal Indian

Sign Language of the Plains Indians of North America with more than five
hundred illustrations. This publication had nine editions and was widely
used by the Boy Scouts International as a “universal” means of communi-
cation. Despite the questionable use of the term “universal,” the renowned
anthropological linguist Albert Kroeber (1958) considered Tomkins’s dic-
tionary to be a very reliable source for Indian Sign Language.
In the late 1800s, Tomkins grew up “on the edge of the Sioux Indian
Reservation in Dakota Territory,” where he first learned sign language as
a boy (1926, 7). He studied the published works of Mallery (1880, 1881)
and Clark (1880) and maintained his studies of Indian Sign Language
through frequent interaction with Blackfoot, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe
signers. His primary informant was J. L. Clark, a Blackfoot Indian sculp-
tor from Glacier Park, Montana, who was deaf.11
For the present study, I made 306 sign pair comparisons between ASL
and the PISL descriptions and illustrations from Tomkins (1926). Of
these, 150 of 306 (49 percent) Indian signs were coded as similar or iden-
tical to ASL. This is consistent with the pairwise comparisons made be-
tween earlier descriptions of Indian signs (Dunbar 1801; S. Long 1823)
and ASL, in which 48 percent similarity was evident (see Table 3).
According to the standards of historical linguistics and the thresholds of
lexical similarity (discussed in the literature section), this percentage
of similarity indicates separate languages. The relatively high percentage of
similarity (49 percent) warrants further investigation and suggests that
language contact and lexical borrowing took place between ASL and
PISL. These results are presented in Table 4.
table 4. Summary of Similarly Articulated Signs for PISL/ASL Lexical

Comparisons

PISL (Tomkins 1926) 306 150 (49 percent)

ASL (J. Long 1918)
110 : jeffrey davis

LEXICAL COMPARISONS FOR DUNBAR/LONG (EARLY 1800s)

AND TOMKINS (EARLY 1900s)
When I compared the Dunbar (1801) and Long (1823) descriptions

with Tomkins’s (1926) descriptions and illustrations, the percentage of
similarity was higher. This time fifty-two of sixty-one (85 percent) de-
scriptions from Long and twenty-two of twenty-seven (81 percent) from
Dunbar were similar or identical to those by Tomkins. The combined
total indicates that, between Long-Dunbar and Tomkins, seventy-four of
eighty-eight (84 percent) sign pairs were similar. Following the standards
described earlier, these findings suggest that the sign varieties represented
in this sample, with a historical range from 1801 to 1926 (125 years),
appear to be genetically related (i.e., from the same language origins).
These results are summarized in Table 5.
Indian Sign Language Film Dictionary (1930s)
The motion pictures that were produced by Hugh Scott (with support
from a 1930 Act of the U.S. Congress) constitute one of the richest
sources of PISL data. These films documented chieftains and elders from
thirteen distinct spoken language groups who were communicating with
each other through sign language. During the historic three-day Indian
Sign Language Council (September 4–6, 1930), several discussions were
signed, including the telling of anecdotes and stories. These documentary
films show the Indian participants engaging in several types of discourse
(e.g., making introductions and showing name signs for each of the
tribes represented; signing traditional cultural and medicine stories; mak-
ing metaphorical comparisons; see Davis 2006).
table 5. Summary of Similarly Articulated Signs for the Dunbar/Long-Tomkins

Sign Pairs
S. Long (1823) and 61 52 (85 percent)

Tomkins (1926)
Dunbar (1801) and 27 22 (81 percent)
Tomkins (1926)
Dunbar/Long and 88 74 (84 percent)
Tomkins

One of Scott’s primary consultants was Richard Sanderville, a

Blackfeet tribal elder and interpreter. In 1934, Sanderville traveled to
the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., to complete the Indian
Sign Language film dictionary started by Scott, who died before finish-
ing the project. Scott’s contribution (i.e., 358 proper noun signs for
tribes and geographic locations) were included with the 1930s’ films.
While working at the National Archives in 2002, I located Sanderville’s
contribution to Scott’s “dictionary,” which was filmed at the
Smithsonian in 1934. Unfortunately, the only preservation copies avail-
able were either poorly processed or produced in an outmoded format.
After three years of analysis to decipher what remains of Sanderville’s
film contribution, I examined approximately 347 signs and idioms in a
variety of lexical categories including abstract nouns, classifier predi-
cates, and noun and verb modifiers. Some PISL sign examples from
Sanderville are the following:
spotted famous
horse dismount few
lake (water round) quarrelsome
galaxy/milky way traditional
glad want
anxious cholera
beautiful
Along with Sanderville’s original translations, examples of what he

called “idioms” are the following:
Signed Expression Sanderville’s Translation
break my talk disobey

grass cut three times alfalfa
prairie think believe without cause
prairie killing accidental killing
prairie do to me not my fault
tiny bit recover saved by the skin of one’s teeth
to carry or have a pipe to be a leader
put blanket over the head to suppress
soldier do it to effect tribal decision
hide talk whisper
112 : jeffrey davis

COMPARISONS OF SANDERVILLE AND WEATHERWAX
Sanderville’s (1934) contribution may be considered a type of Rosetta

stone. That is, the lexical inventories documented in these films, com-
bined with the basic written and voice-over translations provided by
Sanderville and Scott (1931–1934), are the keys to deciphering what the
original participants at the council were signing. Figure 4 provides digi-
tized movie stills from the 1930s’ Council of Indian Sign Language. In
that figure, Short Face of the Piegan tribal group signs now to mark his
turn to sign. Bitter Root Jim, representing the Flathead (Salashian) peo-
ple, uses the tribal sign piegan, the sign for same-as, and the traditional
sign for indian.
In the next analysis I compared Tomkins’s early twentieth-century de-
scriptions with 150 examples of Indian signs that were contemporarily
signed and videotaped in 2002 by Martin Weatherwax, chair of
Blackfeet Studies at Blackfeet Community College in Browning,
Montana (near the original site of the 1930s’ Indian Sign Language
Council). Weatherwax (pers. comm., May 2002) reported that he
learned Indian Sign Language natively from his Blackfoot grandfather.
The comparisons of sign tokens from the Sanderville-Weatherwax
corpus involved the following. First, in the Sanderville-Tomkins compar-
ison of 100 pairs, 90 percent were coded as similarly articulated. Second,
the comparison of eighty sign pairs between Weatherwax and Tomkins
showed that sixty-four pairs (80 percent) were similarly articulated.
Third, the comparison of fifty sign pairs between Weatherwax and
Sanderville revealed that 92 percent were similarly articulated. Table 6
summarizes these results.
Nevertheless, 230 sign pairs constitute a relatively small sample, and
additional pairwise comparisons are needed before definitive conclusions
Figure 4 Movie stills from 1930s Council of Indian Sign Language [now, pie-
gan, sameas, indian] (Source: Scott 1934, Courtesy of the National Archives,
Washington, DC)

table 6. Summary of Similarly Articulated Signs for the Sanderville-Tomkins-

Weatherwax Lexical Comparisons

Sanderville-Tomkins 100 90 (90 percent)

Weatherwax-Tomkins 80 64 (80 percent)
Sanderville-Weatherwax 50 46 (92 percent)
can be reached. Still, these preliminary findings (a 90–92 percent range

of similarity between Sanderville and Tomkins and between Sanderville
and Weatherwax, respectively) is a strong indication that the PISL sign
varieties used by Sanderville, Tomkins, and Weatherwax are genetically
and historically related. Tomkins had reportedly been signing since 1884,
and the descriptions and illustrations used in those sign-pair compar-
isons were compiled in the early 1920s. Sanderville had been signing all
of his life and was filmed in 1934, when he was in his late seventies.
Weatherwax, who was filmed in 2002, had also been signing his entire
life (having learned it from his Blackfoot grandfather in the early 1950s).
Thus, these sign models had been signing throughout their lives, and
these data thus span a 200-year time period, from the nineteenth to the
early twenty-first century.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The PISL corpus considered for this study was collected from several
generations of signers (i.e., from the early 1800s to the early 2000s).
More than 8,000 descriptions of Indian signs were identified from previ-
ously collected written, illustrated, and filmed sources (Davis 2006).
Given the richness and potential number of comparisons offered by this
corpus, there is an evident need for expanded historical (diachronic) and
contemporary (synchronic) comparative analyses of language change,
shared symbolism, lexical borrowing, and historical relatedness among
these signed language varieties. For the present study, 1,500 lexical signs
were selected from the sources mentioned. This resulted in 1,297 pair-
wise comparisons between PISL and ASL historical antecedents. The
analyses of the admittedly small data sets led to several conclusions.
Due to the greater potential for shared symbolism (i.e., iconicity)
among unrelated sign languages, researchers (cf. Guerra Currie et al.
114 : jeffrey davis

2002; Parkhurst and Parkhurst 2003; Woll et al. 2001) have proposed
that a relatively high baseline of percentage of lexical similarity is needed
to determine whether sign languages are historically related. While re-
searchers vary to some degree in the standard or method applied to de-
termine lexical similarity and historical relatedness, they generally agree
that a base level of at least 80 percent similarity is needed to determine
whether two sign languages are historically or genetically related. Because
iconicity and indexicality features may potentially skew the results of lex-
ical similarity studies of sign languages, signed language researchers con-
tinue to deal with this major theoretical issue in various ways (e.g., es-
tablishing high thresholds to determine lexical similarity and using word
lists with a low potential for iconicity).
The present study has followed the methods and standards estab-
lished in previous lexical similarity and cognate studies; two main
causes of historical relatedness have been considered: genetic and lexi-
cal borrowing as a result of language contact. Genetically related lan-
guages develop from a common ancestor and are classified as members
of the same language family (cf. Campbell 2000, 2004). Lexical simi-
larity or relatedness may also be caused by historical language contact
and borrowing (i.e., two languages may have borrowed from each other
over time, but their origins can be traced to two distinct original lan-
guages). The 80–90 percent range of lexical similarity among the PISL
sign varieties compared in this study indicates that these varieties were
dialects of the same language. These findings are congruent with West’s
(1960) earlier findings that PISL of the North Central Plains area was
the standard dialect and that different dialects of PISL were used by
Native American groups beyond this geographic area. Although the
best-documented cases are of the PISL variety used among the more no-
madic groups of the Great Plains region, different sign varieties have
been observed among the tribes of northwestern Canada and the south-
western region of the United States (see Davis 2006). Further studies are
needed to clarify the similarities and differences between these signed
language varieties.
The percentages of lexical similarity (in the 50-percent range) in the
pairwise comparisons between historical varieties of ASL and PISL in-
dicate that they are separate languages (i.e., unlikely to be genetically re-
lated). However, this is a relatively high range of lexical similarity and
indicates possible lexical borrowing between the languages. Based on
this evidence, it is highly probable that lexical borrowing occurred as a

consequence of language contact between native groups of American

Indians and individuals who were deaf. Supporting this conclusion is
the fact that, during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the
original descriptions of Indian signs were published and distributed to
educators at schools for deaf children around the country; moreover,
there are also several historical accounts of American Indians visiting
residential schools for deaf students during the nineteenth century (e.g.,
Mallery 1880). I maintain that a need exists for additional studies of
larger data sets and of historical sign language contact between individ-
uals from the American Indian and the Deaf communities.
The historical analysis of lexical similarity discussed here offers a rel-
atively limited picture of the numerous sociolinguistic factors at the
interface of language and culture. Nonetheless, as signed language re-
searchers employ new and better methods of data collection and analy-
sis, particularly in the fields of sociolinguistics and historical linguistics,
the accuracy of cross-linguistic sign language studies will be enhanced
and provide a better picture of the relationship between signed lan-
guages. Further research of naturally occurring discourse that character-
izes other linguistic levels (e.g., the phonological to the grammatical) is
also needed. I hope that the preliminary findings reported here will in-
form future studies of historical and contemporary sign language use
among North American Indians and encourage additional language re-
vitalization, preservation, data collection, descriptions, and ethnographic
fieldwork.
NOTES
1. Various terms are used in the literature to refer to the aboriginal peo-
ples of the Americas. Members of these cultural groups generally call themselves
Indians. The term “North American Indian” is sometimes necessary to distin-
guish the indigenous peoples of North America from those of Central and South
America. Specific tribal affiliations and cultural-linguistic groups are acknowl-
edged whenever possible (e.g., Assiniboine, Blackfeet, Lakota, Northern
Cheyenne; cf. Campbell 2000; Davis 2006; Mithun 1999).
2. I offer readers a link to a prototype online digital archive of documen-
tary materials and continue to expand this open-access online linguistic corpus
to include translations, linguistic analyses, and descriptions. Readers may view
samples of the historical documentary films and illustrations documenting tradi-
116 : jeffrey davis

tional signed language used by some Indian groups at the following website:
http://sunsite.utk.edu/plainssignlanguage/. The development and maintenance of
this archive is supported by a 2006–2007 fellowship for Documenting
Endangered Languages from the National Endowment of the Humanities and
National Science Foundation, with the endorsement of the Smithsonian
Institution and support from the University of Tennessee’s Digital Library, Office
of the Chancellor and Dean of Graduate Studies.
3. Linguistic families are capitalized and the “equals” sign () indicates
dialects of the same language (Campbell 2000; Mithun 1999).
4. Generally, twelve major geographic cultural areas of Native North
America have been identified in the literature, with the Plains cultural area cen-
trally located to all of these. Waldman (2000 32–33) explains that these cultural
areas were “not finite and absolute boundaries” and “that tribal territories were
often vague and changing, with great movement among the tribes and the pass-
ing of cultural traits from one area to the next; and that people of the same lan-
guage family sometimes lived in different cultural areas, even in some instances
at opposite ends of the continent.”
5. Wurtzburg and Campbell (1995, 154–55) report that the earliest-
known descriptions of the Indians signing come from the 1527 Spanish expedi-
tion to Florida and were written by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, who described
numerous occasions during which Indian groups communicated with each other
in signs. According to the historical record, Cabeza de Vaca “also clearly distin-
guished which groups spoke the same language, which spoke different languages
but understood others, and which groups did not understand others at all, ex-
cept through the use of sign language” (ibid., 155). Pedro de Castañeda made
similar descriptions during the Coronado expedition of 1541–1542, and sub-
sequent reports continued into the eighteenth century (see Wurtzburg and
Campbell 1995 for further descriptions).
6. It is noteworthy that Franz Boas and Garrick Mallery helped establish
and served terms as presidents of learned societies during the late 1800s and
early 1900s (e.g., the Linguistic Society of America, the American Philosophical
Society, and the American Anthropological Society). Mallery was credited as one
of the first scholars of his time to use the term “semiotics” (Umiker-Sebeok and
Sebeok 1978). During the mid-1900s Albert Kroeber and Charles Voegelin each
also served terms as president of the Linguistic Society of America and were con-
sidered pioneers in the emergent field of anthropological linguistics; the two de-
veloped the most widely used classification systems for Native American lan-
guages that are still in use today.
7. Since West’s two-volume dissertation, there has been only one published
linguistic analysis of American Indian Sign Language (i.e., Newell’s analyses of
morphosyntactic structures, which supported Kroeber’s [1958] earlier observation

that, “whereas writing systems such as Chinese or Hieroglyphics are alternate

expression systems of a single communication system, sign language is an inde-
pendent communication system in its own right” [1981, 1989]).
8. Parkhurst and Parkhurst (2003) recommend using sign vocabulary lists
that comprise primarily common nouns (e.g., family members, animals, foods,
clothing), wh-questions (who, what, where, how), calendar terms (days of the
week, months, year), basic color terms (white, black, blue, green), and a limited
number of adjectives (poor, sweet, young, dirty, afraid) and verbs (to begin, to
lie, to play). They provide a single example of a highly iconic sign (book) and do
not describe the process of elimination for highly iconic vocabulary from the
“Parkhurst word lists” (their term for their basic 50-word short lists and 100-
word long lists).
9. For example, Guerra Currie, Meier, and Walters (2002) compared sign
pairs between Mexican Sign Language (la Lengua de Señas Mexicana, or LSM)
and Japanese Sign Language (Nihon Syuwa, or NS) that share no known histor-
ical or cultural links and found that 23 percent of the signs compared were sim-
ilarly articulated. As Guerra Currie et al (2002, 229) describe this, “the forms of
these signs appear to be drawing from similar imagistic sources, such as shared
visual icons in such sign pairs as fire, bird, and house.” Such visual imagery is
reflected in the signs for the fire’s “flame”; bird’s “beak”; and house’s “roof.”
10. McNeill (1992, 6) identified four types of gestures that should be con-
sidered along a continuum of “gesticulation,” “pantomime,” “emblem,” and
“sign language.” McNeill (2000, 6) has proposed that “gesticulation accompa-
nies speech” and “is non-conventionalized” and distinguished this from the signs
in a signed language that, “like words in speech, are conventionalized, seg-
mented, and analytic, and possessed of language properties, while they are oblig-
atorily not performed with speech.” McNeill correlated the presence or absence
of speech with gesture and with the absence or presence of conventional linguis-
tic properties and concluded that “emblems are at an intermediate position . . .
partly like gesticulations, partly like signs.” McNeill (1992, 6) emphasized “the
nonlinguistic character of these gestures: the lack of a fully contrastive system
and the lack of syntactic potential.”
11. Tomkins (1926, 9) claimed that “every sign in this work is a true Indian
sign. . . . Nothing has been borrowed from the deaf or from other sources.” That
is, he did not include the ASL signs of schools for deaf children or the Deaf com-
munity. Although his primary consultant was a deaf Blackfoot, it was common
during this time period for American Indians who were deaf to remain on the an-
cestral lands or Indian reservations with little or no contact with ASL-signing
Anglo Deaf community members. Following traditional ways, it was common
for some deaf American Indians not to attend state residential schools for deaf
children (see Davis and Supalla 1995 for further descriptions).
118 : jeffrey davis

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Woll, B., R. Sutton-Spence, and F. Elton. 2001. Multilingualism: The global
approach to sign languages. In The sociolinguistics of sign languages, ed.
C. Lucas, 8–32. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Woodward, J. 1978. Historical bases of American sign languages. In
Understanding language through sign language research, ed. P. Siple, 333–
48. New York: Academic Press.
Wurtzburg, S., and L. Campbell. 1995. North American Indian Sign Language:
Evidence of its existence before European contact. International Journal of
American Linguistics 61: 153–67.
122 : jeffrey davis

SASAKI_Sign_Pozos_Gaul_193027 7/30/07 11:25 AM Page 123
The Lexicons of Japanese Sign Language and
Taiwan Sign Language: A Preliminary
Comparative Study of Handshape Differences
Daisuke Sasaki
It is often said that sign languages in Taiwan and Korea are quite sim-
ilar to Japanese Sign Language (JSL) (e.g., Smith 1989, 1990). Yasuhiro
Ichida, a hearing signer and researcher of JSL, made a trip to Korea in
the spring of 2002 and reports on the similarity between JSL and Korean
Sign Language (KSL): “First of all, the overall impression was that the
difference between Korean Sign Language (KSL) and Japanese Sign
Language (JSL) could be regarded as a dialectal difference.1 Many of the
basic vocabulary items are similar. Of course, there are completely dif-
ferent vocabulary items, and some identically articulated forms have
This study is based on my qualifying paper for Ph.D. candidacy submitted to

the Department of Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin (Sasaki 2003).
My research at the University of Texas at Austin was made possible by the
Fulbright Program, jointly funded by the Japanese and the U.S. governments, and
this study was partially funded by a grant from Hokusei Gakuen University and
a Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) (no. 18720109) from the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT), Japan. Part of the
study was presented at the Seventh Annual International Conference of the
Japanese Society for Language Sciences (Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan, June
25–26, 2005), the thirty-second conference of the Japanese Association of Sign
Linguistics (Chiba University, Chiba, Japan, July 16–17, 2005), and the ninth
conference on Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research (Universidade
Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil, December 6–9, 2006). I am
greatly indebted to the readers of my qualifying paper, Richard P. Meier and
Nora C. England, as well as two anonymous reviewers of this volume and the
editor David Quinto-Pozos, for their valuable comments and encouragement. All
remaining errors are, of course, my own.
123
different meanings, but the mutual intelligibility is fairly high since both
languages are also very similar to each other in terms of grammar”
(Ichida 2002, translated from Japanese by D.S.).2
The same things seem to be true of Taiwan Sign Language (TSL).
Osugi (1995) reports that, in conversation with a Taiwanese deaf person
who had graduated from a school for the deaf in the southern part of
Taiwan, he used the western dialect of JSL and the Taiwanese deaf indi-
vidual used TSL, yet they could make themselves understood well. I had
a similar experience with deaf people from Taiwan. When I conversed
with them, I used JSL, and they used TSL. Although we sometimes
needed to check the meaning of some of the signs, our communication
was smooth enough for us to understand each other.
When linguists discuss the similarity of lexical items between lan-
guages, they are focusing on similarity in both form (i.e., sound or
articulation patterns) and meaning. In spoken languages, that similarity
may or may not be the realization of some historical relationship be-
tween given languages. For “sound-meaning similarities” or “sound-
meaning resemblances,” Greenberg (1953, 1957) posits four possible
classes of causes or explanations. Two of them, genetic relationship and
borrowing, involve historical factors, whereas the other two, chance
and symbolism, do not. If we follow Guerra Currie, Meier, and Walters
(2002, 224), “symbolism,” as used by Greenberg, can be paraphrased
as “shared symbolism,” which refers to a situation in which “a pair of
words happens to share the same motivation, whether iconic or in-
dexic.”
In the case of TSL in relation to JSL, it seems likely that some histor-
ical factors played an important role in the fairly high intelligibility be-
tween the two languages. Ichida (2000) explains that “[I]n Asia, due to
the colonial occupation, signs in Taiwan and Korea have a strong influ-
ence from Japanese Sign Language” (original text in Japanese, translated
by D.S.). In addition, Nakamura (2002) claims that “[T]he national sign
languages in Taiwan and Korea apparently have incorporated some JSL
signs and forms from the colonial occupation of these countries by Japan
prior to World War II.”3
The objectives of this study include the comparison of the lexicons of
the sign languages of East Asia and, in particular, a focus on JSL and
TSL. Similar studies have been conducted on many other sign languages,
but none has compared the lexicons of sign languages in East Asia.
Therefore, this work will at least help to illustrate the relationship be-
124 : daisuke sasaki

tween JSL and TSL. Furthermore, it pursues phonological explanations

for differences, both synchronic and diachronic, among “phonologically
similarly articulated” signs in the sign languages in question. Such ex-
planations have been absent from most of the previous research on the
comparison of the lexicons of sign languages.
In the following section, I briefly discuss the history of deaf education
in Taiwan, TSL, and previous studies of lexical comparisons. Then I
compare lexical items of JSL and TSL using three different vocabulary
lists. Finally, I explain “phonologically similarly articulated” signs in
which a difference occurs only in the handshape parameter. In that sec-
tion, I maintain that the handshapes used in TSL signs are more difficult
to articulate than those in the corresponding JSL signs.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF DEAF EDUCATION IN TAIWAN
According to Smith (1976) and Modern Classics Cultural Enterprises

Ltd., Division of Sign Language Books, Research and Compilation Com-
mittee (MCCE 1999), although deaf education in mainland China began
during the Qing dynasty in 1888, it was not until 1915 that deaf education
in the island of Taiwan was initiated. In Tainan, a major city in southern
Taiwan, the English Presbyterian Mission in 1890 established a school for
the blind, which was supervised by the Rev. William Campbell. After the
Japanese colonial occupation of Taiwan began in 1895, the school accepted
deaf students for the first time in 1915 and changed its name to the Tainan
School for the Blind and the Mute.4 In the meantime, in Taipei, Kingo
Kimura, head of the Taipei Gastroenterology Hospital, asked the Japanese
government to grant him the permission to establish a school for the blind.
Parents of deaf children in Taiwan then urged him to also accept their chil-
dren for his school. Their request was honored, and in 1917, he opened the
Kimura Education Center for the Blind and the Mute in his own home.
After 1945, at the end of both World War II and the Japanese occu-
pation of Taiwan, the island was returned to China. At this time, two
more schools for the deaf were founded in Taiwan. In 1956, the third
school for the deaf was established in Fengyuan as a branch of the
Tainan school. After the Fengyuan school became independent in 1960,
it moved to Taichung, a major midwestern city, in 1979 and was re-
named the Taiwan Provincial Taichung School for the Deaf.5 The fourth
school for the deaf, the Private Chi-Ying School for the Deaf, is in
Lexicons of JSL and TSL : 125

Kaohsiung, a southern seaport. It offers only a six-year elementary pro-

gram, and its graduates usually continue their studies at the other
schools for the deaf.
According to MCCE (1999) both the Tainan and the Taipei schools
adopted a teaching methodology using sign language. After the Tainan
school began accepting deaf pupils, its principal was Katsukuma
Hamazaki, who was sent from the Department of Teacher Training at the
Tokyo School for the Deaf. He was an advocate of deaf education using
sign communication, and it is claimed that it was he who introduced
Japanese Sign Language to southern Taiwan. In Taipei, too, sign language
was used in the classrooms. You may wonder why sign language was still
used at schools for the deaf in Taiwan even in the 1910s, however. In
other words, long after the Milan Conference (the Second International
Congress on Education of the Deaf) of 1880, where it was decided that
schools for the deaf should ban the use of sign language and adopt an oral
approach,6 why did sign language continue to be used as a medium of in-
struction in Taiwanese schools for the deaf? To answer this question, let
us consider the situation of deaf education in Japan at that time.
According to Smith (1976) and Seino (1997), when the first school for
the deaf in Japan, the Kyoto Institute for the Blind and the Mute, was es-
tablished in 1878, Toshiro Furukawa, who was its first principal and is
also known as the “father of Japanese Deaf education,” employed “ges-
tures, mime signs, pronunciation, speech, dictation, speaking, writing
and composition” (Smith 1976, 1). Moreover, the Tokyo School for the
Blind and the Mute,7 the second school for the deaf established in 1880,8
also adopted Furukawa’s educational methods. It seems that both
schools tried to use every possible method in teaching deaf students but,
due to a lack of success with oral training, eventually dropped their oral
programs. Neither a lecture by Alexander Graham Bell at the Tokyo
School for the Blind and the Mute in November 1898 nor a visit by John
Dutton Wright, an American oral educator, to Japan in 1919 bolstered
the popularity of oral education. Smith (1976, 2) explains that “[T]he
manual method reigned in the schools for the deaf in Japan until about
1920 as the oral method was considered too difficult for use in the
schools.” In fact, Shimpachi Konishi, principal at the Tokyo school
(1896–1925), was reluctant to adopt the oral approach, and it was not
until 1925 that oral classes were reopened (Seino 1997).
However, the situation changed quickly. In 1920, August Karl
Reischauer (1879–1971) and his wife9 founded the Tokyo Oral School

for the Deaf. In 1924, Unosuke Kawamoto (1890–1960)10 became a

teacher for the Department of Teacher Training at the Tokyo School for
the Deaf as well as a teacher at the school itself, after his twenty-month
stay overseas as a researcher for the Ministry of Education, and estab-
lished the Japan Association to Promote Speech for the Deaf in 1925. He
was joined in this endeavor by Tokuichi Hashimoto (1879–1968), prin-
cipal of the Nagoya Municipal School for the Blind and the Mute,
Kichinosuke Nishikawa (1874–1940), father of a deaf daughter and the
founder of the Shiga Prefectural Oral School for the Deaf, and others.
The association published a journal called Deaf Education in the Oral
Method. Kawamoto also conducted a workshop at the Tokyo School for
the Deaf to introduce the oral method to all of the schools for the deaf
in Japan, while, in Nagoya, the Ministry of Education began a series of
annual discussions on oralism. These meetings would surely convince the
schools for the deaf in Japan to adopt the oral method.
It thus seems that JSL had already been introduced to the Taiwanese
schools before oralism prevailed in Japan, and I think that we have fig-
ured out why the manual communication system was still in use after
1880 in both Japan and Taiwan.
SIGN LANGUAGE IN TAIWAN
According to Smith (1987b, 1989), the number of TSL signers on the

island of twenty-two million is estimated to be 30,000 deaf people. In
Taiwan, TSL is often called “natural sign language” and is the form of
manual communication used in daily life by deaf people. It is distinct
from a manually coded system called “grammatical sign language,”
which is actually Signed Mandarin used in the Taiwanese schools for the
deaf.
Smith (1987a, 1987b, 1989) further explains that the vocabulary of
TSL is derived from three major sources. The first is “the form of the lan-
guage that was used in Taiwan before 1895” (Smith 1987b, 113–14),
when Japan began its fifty-year colonial occupation of Taiwan. The sec-
ond is JSL, which was brought into Taiwan between 1895 and 1945.
Teachers were sent from the schools for the deaf in Japan and apparently
contributed to introducing JSL to the deaf community in Taiwan. The
third source is Chinese Sign Language (CSL) of mainland China, which
was first brought to Taiwan in 1949, when the Chinese Communist

Party, headed by Mao Tse-tung, took over the administration of main-

land China and the Nationalist Party, headed by Chiang Kai-shek, fled
to Taiwan, along with approximately two million refugees, including
many deaf Chinese and former teachers at schools for the deaf. In addi-
tion to these major sources, Smith (1987a) claims that Taiwanese deaf
people have been adding new signs to the TSL vocabulary by coining and
borrowing signs from other sign languages, such as American Sign
Language (ASL).11
Smith (1987b, 1989) states that TSL has two major dialects, the Taipei
and the Tainan. This dialectal difference seems to be related to the fact
that, as mentioned earlier, teachers were sent from Japan during the
colonial occupation of Taiwan. According to Smith, teachers at the Tokyo
School for the Blind and the Mute were sent to the school in Taipei,
whereas teachers from the Osaka Prefectural School for the Deaf were
sent to the school in Tainan. In addition, the fact that Lin Wen-sheng,
who was educated at the Tokyo School for the Blind and the Mute
(1904–1917), was the first and only deaf principal at the Taipei school
(1946–1951) may reinforce a possible link between the Tokyo dialect of
JSL and the sign system used in northern Taiwan.12
Several syntactic characteristics of TSL should be briefly mentioned
here. According to Smith (1987b, 1989), TSL has the basic word order
of Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). Because some sign languages use the
word order of the surrounding spoken languages (e.g., the basic word
order of ASL is SVO, following spoken English, whereas in JSL it is Subject-
Object-Verb (SOV), following spoken Japanese), it could be argued that the
word order of Chinese is reflected in that of TSL. Other interesting syn-
tactic features are that TSL has three different types of auxiliary verbs
(aux1, aux2, aux11)13 and that, unlike JSL, TSL does not have any form
of fingerspelling (Smith 1987b).14
Smith and Ting (1979) and Smith (1987b, 1989, 1990) claim that JSL,
TSL, and KSL belong to a single language family (i.e., the Japanese sign
language family). However, that designation should be carefully reexam-
ined. Campbell (1998, 165) defines a language family as “a group of ge-
netically related languages, that is, languages which share a linguistic
kinship by virtue of having developed from a common ancestor” (em-
phasis mine). As reviewed earlier, Smith (1987a, 1987b, 1989) explains
that TSL is derived from three different sources. In addition, JSL does
not share the first and third sources with TSL (i.e., what existed in
Taiwan before 1895 and the sign language of mainland China, respec-

tively). Given Campbell’s definition of “language family,” the hypothesis

of a Japanese Sign Language family that includes TSL is questionable.
Other factors such as grammar should also be taken into account.
Considering the fact that the basic word order of TSL is different from
that of JSL and the fact that aux2 and aux11 do not appear in JSL, it
seems that the notion of a “Japanese sign language family” is problem-
atic and should be readdressed.
PREVIOUS STUDIES
This section includes information about previous studies that compare

lexical items among various sign languages. Specifically, methods that
have been used to collect and analyze the data are highlighted here. This
summary provides a context from which to consider the collection and
analysis performed in the present study.
In a series of works, Woodward (e.g., 1978, 2000, among others) has
compared many pairs of sign languages and/or dialects of a sign lan-
guage. Based on the original 200-word list developed by Swadesh
(1952), Woodward developed a 100-word list modified for sign language
research. Since the original 200-word Swadesh list includes many items
such as body parts and pronouns that are frequently represented indexi-
cally or by pointing in many sign languages, Woodward excluded those
items to avoid the problems of overestimation. Using a very similar for-
mat across his studies, Woodward has compared “possible cognates”
based on the theory developed in glottochronology and lexicostatistics,
but his studies are problematic in several respects. First, he provides no
definition of “possible cognates.” Second, his studies do not include
phonological explanations of the compared signs. And third, no coding
method whatsoever is specified.
Woll first compared twelve sign languages (including ten used in
Europe) and then five (1984, 1987). In each study, she mentioned
Swadesh’s 100- and 200-word lists, as well as one prepared by Stokoe
and Kuschel (1979), but she claimed that “[N]one of these three lists is,
however, wholly useful for a study of urban deaf populations, as all three
have been designed for anthropological research amongst ‘third-world’
groups” (Woll 1987, 13; emphasis in the original). Since she argued
against the use of the lists prepared by Swadesh (1952) and Stokoe and
Kuschel (1979), she proposed her own list of 257 items, many of which,

though, seemed to be from the very lists she had criticized.15 Using her
own list, Woll coded signs based on features such as “orientation of fin-
gers and palm, point of contact between hand and the location of the
sign, and fine handshape details” (1984, 85).
In her dissertation (1999) and a later article (Guerra Currie, Meier,
and Walters 2002), Guerra Currie made a lexical comparison of four
sign languages: Mexican Sign Language (Lengua de Señas Mexicana:
LSM), French Sign Language (Langue des Signes Française: LSF),
Spanish Sign Language (Lengua de Signos Española: LSE), and JSL. She
used two commercially available sets of flash cards and elicited 190
signs. The data were analyzed using the following metric: Similarly ar-
ticulated signs are signs that share “at least two of the three main pa-
rameters of handshape, movement, and place of articulation, as well as
the same approximate meaning” (Guerra Currie 1999, 51), and “a sub-
set of similarly-articulated signs includes those signs that are articulated
similarly or identically on all three major parameters” (Guerra Currie,
Meier, and Walters 2002, 227).
McKee and Kennedy (2000) compared lexical items of Australian
Sign Language (Auslan), British Sign Language (BSL), New Zealand Sign
Language (NZSL), and ASL. They used both the modified 100-word list
developed by Woodward and a new list of 200 signs that were randomly
selected from an NZSL dictionary for comparison. Signs were classified
as follows: identical, completely different, related but different, and not
found, and the authors adopted four major parameters: handshape, lo-
cation, movement, and palm orientation.
The coding methods of these studies are summarized in Table 1.
THE STUDY
In order to form an idea of the extent to which JSL has influenced the
TSL vocabulary, I compared lexical items of JSL and TSL to determine
the degree of lexical similarity.
METHODOLOGY
I used dictionaries of JSL and TSL as sources of data. For JSL signs,
I used Nihongo-syuwa ziten (Japanese-Japanese Sign Language
Dictionary), edited by the Japan Institute for Sign Language Studies of

table 1. Summary of Coding Methods
Guerra McKee
Sign Parameters Woodward Woll Currie and Kennedy
Handshape (“possible cognates”; yes yes yes

Orientation the term, however, yes NA yes
Location is undefined) yes yes yes
Movement NAa yes yes
NA not available
a. The movement of the hands (Woll 1987, 20) was also used as an additional parameter
to diachronically compare lexical items of BSL in the second half of Woll (ibid.), although
it was adopted neither in the synchronic comparison of lexical items in Woll (1984) nor in
the first part of Woll (1987).
the Japanese Federation of the Deaf (hereinafter JISLS-JFD) (1997). As

the title indicates, this is a dictionary of Japanese words with correspon-
ding Japanese signs. For TSL signs, I used Smith and Ting (1979) and
Ting and Smith (1984), namely, volumes 1 and 2 of Shou neng sheng
qiao (Your hands can become a bridge). They are predominantly written
in Chinese, but an equivalent English gloss is given to each sign entry. At
the end of the dictionary, each volume has an English index of the TSL
signs.
I used three different sets of lexical items (word lists) for the compar-
ison between JSL and TSL signs: the 100-word modified Swadesh list de-
veloped by Woodward (2000), the 199-word list developed by McKee
and Kennedy (2000),16 and a third list that included all of the 752 sign
entries in Smith and Ting (1979). To distinguish the phonological identi-
calness, distinctness, and similarity of the signs in question, I used four
phonological parameters: handshape, palm orientation, movement, and
location, following McKee and Kennedy (2000). In addition, I used the
number of hands involved in the production of a sign in question (i.e.,
one-handed versus two-handed or the loss or addition of a hand) as a
fifth parameter to distinguish among signs. Any additional feature that
distinguishes a pair of signs is noted and considered in the analysis.
Based on the similarity or difference of values within these parame-
ters, signs were classified into three categories: phonologically identically
articulated signs, phonologically distinctly articulated signs, and phono-
logically similarly articulated signs. In phonologically identically articu-
lated signs, all of the parameters mentioned earlier must be identical be-
tween the JSL and TSL sign forms; at the same time, they must share the

same meaning. Signs are identified as phonologically similarly articulated

if they share the same meaning and only a single difference is observed
in any one of the five parameters.17 All of the other signs are regarded as
phonologically distinctly articulated.
In addition, two more categories were considered. The first is “seman-
tic mismatches.” Semantically mismatched signs are identical in form but
different in semantics.18 They were excluded from the comparison be-
cause they cannot be easily compared. The second additional category is
“missing data,” which includes signs that were not found in either or both
of the dictionaries; they were also excluded from the comparison.
RESULTS
The results of the three analyses (one for each word list) are summa-
rized in Table 2.19 First I present an explanation of how the categories of
“semantic mismatches” and “missing data” were treated. The percent-
ages of these items were calculated based on the total number of items in
each analysis. For example, in the third analysis, 752 items were in-
cluded in Smith and Ting (1979) and were used for comparison; thus 752
was the total number that was used to calculate the percentages of “se-
mantic mismatches” and “missing data.” In Analysis 3, 135 items or dic-
tionary entries in Smith and Ting (ibid. (18.0 percent) were not found in
JISLS-JFD (1997). Naturally enough, 16 Chinese family names and 6
Taiwanese place names listed in the TSL dictionary were not included in
the JSL dictionary. In addition, 10 items (1.3 percent) showed semantic
mismatches between the two sign languages. For example, the TSL sign
which, in which the 1 handshape on the dominant hand, with the palm
outward, repeats a short, back-and-forth movement from left to right in
the neutral space, is phonologically identical to the JSL sign what; the
JSL sign which is a two-handed sign in which the 1 handshape on both
hands moves up and down alternatingly. In Analysis 3, for example,
since the total of 145 signs cannot easily be compared between the two
languages, they were excluded from the further comparison, and the
remaining 607 items were compared to calculate the percentages of
“phonologically identically articulated signs,” “phonologically similarly
articulated signs,” and “phonologically distinctly articulated signs.”
Of 607 items, 231 (38.1 percent) were phonologically identically ar-
ticulated; 105 (17.3 percent) were regarded as phonologically similarly

table 2. Summary of the Three Analyses

Identically Similarly Distinctly Semantic Missing
Articulated Articulated Articulated Mismatches Data
Analysis 1 33 (42.3%) 16 (20.5%) 29 (37.2%) 7 (7%) 15 (15%)

(100 signs) 49 (62.8%)
out of 78 signs
Analysis 2 37 (38.5%) 20 (20.8%) 39 (40.6%) 5 (2.5%) 98 (49.2%)
(199 signs) 57 (59.4%)
out of 96 signs
Analysis 3 231 (38.1%) 105 (17.3%) 271 (44.6%) 10 (1.3%) 135 (18.0%)
(752 signs) 336 (55.4%)
out of 607 signs
articulated; and 271 (44.6 percent) were considered phonologically dis-

tinctly articulated. The total of phonologically identically articulated and
phonologically similarly articulated signs was 336 items (55.4 percent).
DISCUSSION
The phonological comparison of JSL and TSL lexical items helps us to

consider how signs in these two languages may have been articulated
years ago — before they were recorded on paper or video. Unlike spoken
languages with written forms, it was rather difficult to record sign lan-
guages in linguistic detail until we had notation systems (cf. Stokoe
1960; Stokoe, Casterline, and Croneberg 1965; Prillwitz et al. 1989, to
name a few) and video recording devices. As far as I know, there are no
film recordings or illustrations of JSL and TSL signs from the early 20th
century, unlike ASL (Frishberg 1975, 1979; Supalla 1998, 2004) and
BSL (Woll 1987), and it is a challenge to reconstruct forms from these
sign languages from more than 60 years ago. Since we have no historical
data about how signs were articulated, it is also difficult to determine
whether a certain sign in JSL is historically related to a corresponding
TSL sign. However, by comparing various contemporary signs that are
similarly articulated between the two languages, we can perhaps form a
picture of what the older signs were like in the two languages.
I suggest that phonologically similarly articulated signs may be more
useful for an initial JSL-TSL lexical comparison than phonologically
identically and distinctly articulated signs. The latter may or may not be

related historically, but because of differences in more than one parame-

ter, the analyses of such signs require more in-depth investigation.
Similarly, phonologically identically articulated signs pose challenges for
the researcher because their identity may be coincidental or based on
shared symbolism (e.g., iconicity), as Greenberg (1953, 1957) suggests,
although such similarity could also be due to genetic relationship or bor-
rowing. As a result, this work takes a careful look at phonologically sim-
ilarly articulated signs and does not address comparisons of phonologi-
cally identically and distinctly articulated signs. Such comparisons are
left for future work on this topic.
One hundred and five signs coded as phonologically similarly articu-
lated can be classified into the following seven types according to para-
metric differences and other factors:
Difference in handshape 30 signs

Difference in palm orientation 14 signs
Difference in movement 37 signs
Difference in location 8 signs
One-handedness vs. two-handedness 13 signs
Compound signs 2 signs20
Relation of hands 1 sign21
Total 105 signs
Overall, movement was the most prominent parameter in the present

research,22 and handshape showed the next highest number of observed
differences. Compared with the results of previous studies, in particular
of Woll (1987) and McKee and Kennedy (2000), I found an unusually
high rate of difference in the movement parameter.23
My primary purpose is not to compare the lexicons of JSL and TSL
and to show to what extent they may have been shared, but rather to
look closely at how the resemblance of phonologically similarly articu-
lated signs can be explained according to parametric differences. In this
section, I focus on phonologically similarly articulated signs in which the
only observed difference occurs in the handshape.
Difference in Handshape
Of 105 phonologically similarly articulated signs in JSL and TSL, 30

showed differences only in handshape. These 30 signs were subcatego-
rized into five subtypes.

figure 1. Handshape for airplane (TSL)
The first subtype includes one-handed signs (i.e., signs that involve the
use of only one hand [typically the dominant hand] for articulation), in
which the only difference appears in the handshape and all the other pa-
rameters are coded as identical between the two sign languages. Six signs
(airplane, dirty, hat, sky, sleep, and strange) fall into this category.
For example, for airplane, the dominant hand moves in a straight path
from ipsilateral space to contralateral space. The JSL sign uses a hand-
shape in which the thumb, little finger, and index finger are extended,
and the other fingers are closed. In the TSL sign (see Figure 1), however,
the thumb, little finger, and middle finger (instead of the index finger) are
extended. If you try to articulate these handshapes by yourself, you will
realize that the handshape for the JSL sign is easier to articulate than its
TSL counterpart.24 For sky, a B handshape,25 a flat handshape in which
all of the fingers are extended and together, is used in the JSL sign,
whereas a handshape that is identical to three in ASL or seven in JSL
and TSL (a so-called 3 handshape, where the thumb, index, and middle
fingers are extended and separated and the other fingers are closed) is
used in TSL.
The second subtype shows the difference in the handshape of the
dominant hand in two-handed signs (i.e., signs in which two hands are
involved). In these, the nondominant hand often functions as a base

figure 2. subordinate (TSL)
hand, and different handshapes may be used across the two hands. Six
signs are classified into this subtype: calendar, chinese-character,
medicine, stand, subordinate, and yard. For subordinate, for ex-
ample, while the JSL sign uses a so-called A-dot handshape26 (where only
the thumb is extended and the other fingers are closed) in both hands,
the corresponding TSL sign (see Figure 2) uses two different handshapes:
an A-dot handshape in the nondominant hand and a bent A-dot hand-
shape (the extended thumb is bent at the first joint) in the dominant
hand.
In addition, for yard, the JSL sign is symmetrical: Both hands use a B
handshape. The corresponding TSL sign is asymmetrical: The nondomi-
nant hand uses a B handshape, as in the JSL counterpart, but the dominant
hand uses a 1 handshape27 (only the index finger is extended; the other fin-
gers are closed). medicine may be another interesting example. For the
TSL version, the middle finger is bent at the base joint while the other
fingers are extended, and the tip of the middle finger makes contact with
the palm of the nondominant hand. In JSL, however, the ring finger is
bent at the base joint while the other fingers are extended, and contact
is made between the tip of the ring finger and the palm (see Figure 3). I
presume that this is related to the fact that, in Japanese, the ring finger is
called kusuri yubi, which literally means “medicine finger,” and I hy-

figure 3. medicine (JSL)
pothesize that, to grasp the meaning of this name, a seemingly hard-to-

articulate handshape is instead selected in the JSL sign.
The third subtype is the opposite of the second; in this category a dif-
ference occurs in the handshape of the nondominant hand in two-handed
signs. This category contains five signs: banana, camera, last-year,
middle, and try. In JSL, banana uses an S handshape (a closed fist with
the thumb enclosing the index and middle fingers) in its nondominant
hand, presumably showing the holding of a banana. In TSL, the non-
dominant hand extends only the middle finger, and the other fingers are
closed.28 For last-year, an S handshape is used in the nondominant
hand of the JSL sign, whereas a closed, flat, so-called Baby O handshape
(where the thumb and index finger are extended to form a flat circle and
the other fingers are closed) is used in the TSL sign (see Figure 4). In these
pairs of signs, the S handshape is much easier to articulate than the oth-
ers. In fact, according to Battison (1978), the handshape is one of the
seven unmarked handshapes.29 For camera, on the other hand, the JSL
sign is symmetrical: Both dominant and nondominant hands use a Baby
C handshape (the thumb and the index finger are extended and curved,
and the other fingers are closed). The TSL sign is asymmetrical: The non-
dominant hand uses a regular C handshape (all of the fingers are ex-
tended and curved), and the dominant hand uses a Baby C handshape.

figure 4. last-year (TSL)
The fourth subtype consists of two-handed symmetrical signs that

show handshape differences in both hands; seven signs (cow, even-
more, ordinary, pants, put-on-clothes, shell, and sign-language)
compose this category. In JSL, sign-language uses a 1 handshape in
both hands, whereas in TSL, sign-language uses a B handshape in both
hands. For cow, a Baby C handshape is used in JSL; in TSL, a Y hand-
shape (the thumb and little finger are extended, and the other fingers are
closed) is used.
Signs in the fifth subtype exhibit handshape variations (i.e., hand-in-
ternal changes from one handshape to another), and I suggest that they
be treated differently from signs that involve changes in path move-
ment.30 Six signs (base, choose, few, not-good, ten-thousand, and
young) are included in this subtype. For base, an S handshape, articu-
lated beneath the elbow of the nondominant hand, opens to a 5 hand-
shape (all of the fingers are extended and separate) in the JSL sign; the
TSL counterpart makes a completely opposite movement: A 5 handshape
closes to become an S handshape. For not-good, the JSL sign uses a 1
handshape throughout the articulation without involving a hand-internal
change, whereas in the TSL sign an S handshape changes to a 5 hand-
shape during articulation.31 This is true of young: The JSL sign uses a B
handshape throughout and involves no hand-internal changes, whereas

figure 5. young (TSL)
in TSL (see Figure 5), a B handshape changes to a 5 handshape in the

course of articulation.
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON CHANGES IN SIGNS
On the basis of the data analyzed here and other data discussed in
Sasaki (2003), I assume that certain features that could be regarded as
complex in the present-day TSL signs were also observed in the JSL signs
that existed when they were introduced to the Deaf community in
Taiwan. In other words, the present-day TSL signs may retain some older
features (archaisms) of JSL signs that existed more than 60 years ago,
and we may thus be able to reconstruct older forms, or protoforms, of
JSL signs by looking at the present forms of both JSL and TSL signs.
According to Baugh and Cable (2002, 360–61), “[A]ccordingly it has
often been maintained that transplanting a language results in a sort of
arrested development. . . . In language this slower development is often
regarded as a form of conservatism, and it is assumed as a general prin-
ciple that the language of a new country is more conservative than the
same language when it remains in the old habit. . . . And, it is a well-
recognized fact in cultural history that isolated communities tend to pre-
serve old customs and beliefs.” Baugh and Cable (ibid., 360) explain that
several archaic features are found in American English when we compare
it with British English. For example, the preservation of the postvocalic
r sound in American English is characteristic of English speech in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In this section, I discuss two char-
acteristics observed through the comparison of phonologically similarly
articulated signs.

The first characteristic that I have observed concerns the concept of

symmetry. In the present study, it seems that two-handed asymmetrical
signs in TSL are realized as symmetrical signs in JSL. For example, TSL
yard is asymmetrical: The nondominant hand with a B handshape does
not involve any movement, whereas the dominant hand with a 1 hand-
shape draws an arc on the horizontal plane in neutral space. For the JSL
counterpart, on the contrary, the dominant hand makes a B handshape,
which is now identical to the handshape of the nondominant hand.
Other examples include camera and subordinate. For TSL camera,
different handshapes are used, with a C handshape in the nondominant
hand and a Baby C handshape in the dominant hand. camera in JSL is
a symmetrical sign, in which a Baby C handshape is used in both hands.
Comparing two-handed symmetrical signs with asymmetrical signs, we
could postulate that asymmetrical signs are more difficult to articulate
than their symmetrical counterparts, presumably because two different
handshapes have to be processed simultaneously. If we posit a protosign
for JSL and TSL before and during World War II and assume that, due
to conservatism, it did not change its form in TSL, whereas it did change
in JSL due to the economy of language, we may assume that the present-
day TSL signs show what JSL signs once looked like.
The second characteristic observed in this research is simplification;
that is, hand-internal movements that are observed in some TSL signs are
no longer involved in the corresponding JSL signs. Signs such as choose,
not-good, and young involve hand-internal movements in TSL, but no
such movement occurs in the JSL counterparts. In addition, some JSL
signs use purportedly easier handshapes than TSL signs do. The TSL sign
sky uses a 3 handshape, but the JSL counterpart uses a B handshape. As
Battison (1978) explains, the B handshape is among the unmarked hand-
shapes and may be easier to articulate than the 3 handshape. On the
other hand, as reviewed in the previous section, the thumb, little finger,
and middle finger are extended in the TSL sign airplane, whereas the
thumb, little finger, and index finger are extended in the JSL counterpart.
In addition, the nondominant hand of banana in JSL is an S handshape,
whereas the corresponding TSL sign uses a handshape in which only the
middle finger is extended and the other fingers are closed.
Based on the anatomical and physiological constraints on bones and
muscles in the hand, Ann (1993) proposes an “ease score” for hand-
shapes to enable us to calculate their complexity.32 According to Ann,
the ease score for the handshape of TSL airplane is 2 and that for the

handshape of JSL airplane is 1.33 For banana, the S handshape of the

JSL sign has an ease score of 0, whereas that of the TSL sign has a score
of 2.34 With respect to where to make the dividing lines between “easy,”
“hard,” and “impossible,” Ann simply lets the physiology determine
them: According to her criteria, for handshapes in which some of the fin-
gers are selected (for extension, curving, or bending) and the rest are
closed, a handshape with an ease score of 1, 2, or 3 would be considered
hard (but not impossible), but one with an ease score of 4 or more is re-
garded as physically impossible. If her argument is valid, the JSL hand-
shapes for airplane and banana are easier to articulate than the corre-
sponding TSL signs, and we can assume first that signs in JSL have
changed over time according to the economy of language and also that,
because of archaism or conservatism, those in TSL did not change.
CONCLUSION
In comparing the lexicons of JSL and TSL, I have focused on the hand-
shape parameter of phonologically similarly articulated signs. Of 105
phonologically similarly articulated signs, 30 showed differences in hand-
shape, and these were further classified into five subtypes: one-handed
signs, two-handed signs in which a difference occurs in the dominant
hand, two-handed signs in which a difference is observed in the nondom-
inant hand, two-handed signs in which both hands exhibit a difference,
and signs that involve hand-internal changes. The data here suggest di-
achronic changes: two-handed asymmetrical signs have become symmet-
rical in terms of handshape, and handshape has been simplified. This his-
torical change may well be due to archaism or conservatism in TSL.
However, the present study also raises several additional issues. First,
I have defined “phonologically similarly articulated signs” as those that
share the same meaning and differ in just one parameter, following
Guerra Currie (1999) and Guerra Currie, Meier, and Walters (2002).
This strict definition permits as much researcher bias to be avoided as
possible. At the same time, however, the strictness of the definition may
have eliminated probable pairs of phonologically similarly articulated
signs, as reported in Sasaki (2003). Future studies should consider
whether this definition is appropriate for “phonologically similarly ar-
ticulated signs” and how much of researchers’ and/or native signers’ in-
tuition should be included or excluded for comparisons.

Second, I have shown that there is a definite limit to the comparison

of signs using sign language dictionaries. Sign languages are visual-gestural
languages, and the two-dimensional illustrations in a paper dictionary
lack significant information with respect to three-dimensional space
(specifically, location and movement). The most effective way to obtain
more precise data is to interview native signers. Future studies on com-
parisons of this nature must include such data.
Third, data of this nature should be collected from native signers not
only of JSL and TSL but also of KSL. Just as the comparison of signs in
JSL and TSL is important, so are those between JSL and KSL and be-
tween TSL and KSL. In addition, we should bear in mind that marginal
areas in Japan might retain older forms of JSL signs, as is implied by
Kunio Yanagida’s (1930) theory that archaic words remain in marginal
areas, which may apply to sign language as well. Such comparisons may
well bring to light important and interesting insights into the develop-
mental processes of signs in each area.
Finally, a clear relationship among Asian sign languages has not yet
been revealed. As mentioned earlier, TSL may exhibit some influence
from CSL of mainland China (Smith 1987a, 1987b). Also, Fischer
(2001) claims that Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) seems to be re-
lated to the southern dialect of CSL.35 In addition, considering the fact
that the written languages of many Asian countries use Chinese charac-
ters to an extent and share some degree of cultural characteristics
through the use of these characters, it would be reasonable to hypothe-
size that some measure of cultural commonality may affect the formation
of each sign language. This would appear to occur particularly at the lex-
ical level in view of the fact that many borrowed signs display the shape
of Chinese characters. In future studies, other Asian sign languages (as
well as JSL, TSL, and KSL) should be compared both lexically and gram-
matically.
NOTES
1. Ichida (pers. comm.) later recalls that the impression reported in his ar-
ticle (2002) might be a bit exaggerated. According to him, KSL signs for formu-
laic expressions (thank-you, i-am-sorry), basic verbs (older forms of exist and
be), basic words regarding human relationships (man, woman, father,
mother, sibling, marry, friend), basic adjectives and adverbs (true, good,

bad, young, very, okay, also, always), wh-words (where, who, when), and
conjunctions (if) are similar to corresponding JSL signs.
2. This fairly high mutual intelligibility can be realized only when signers
employ signed languages as natural languages that are used among deaf people
and whose structure is completely different from that of the spoken languages
surrounding them. Ichida (2002) also reports on his experience with the hearing
principal of the National Seoul School for the Deaf. In their meeting, the princi-
pal fluently used “hearing sign language” (or manually coded Korean or simul-
taneous communication), but Ichida and his Deaf colleagues had to rely on their
interpreters to understand what the principal tried to say by his “signing.”
3. Smith (1976, 1990) makes a similar observation.
4. In 1946, the school changed its name to the Taiwan Provincial Tainan
School for the Blind and the Mute. In 1962, it became the Taiwan Provincial
Tainan School for the Blind and the Deaf. Then in 1968, when the division of
deaf education was separated from the division of blind education, the Taiwan
Provincial Tainan School for the Deaf was established. It is now referred to as
the National Tainan School for the Deaf.
5. Its present name is the National Taichung School for the Deaf.
6. A total of eight resolutions were passed at the conference. Here are the
first two (Gallaudet 1881, 5–6; quoted in Jankowski 1997, 51–52):
1. The Convention, considering the incontestable superiority of speech

over signs, (1) for restoring deaf-mutes to social life, (2) for giving them
greater facility of language, declares that the method of articulation
should have preference over that of signs in the instruction and educa-
tion of the deaf and dumb.
2. Considering that the simultaneous use of signs and speech has the dis-
advantage of injuring speech and lipreading and precision of ideas, the
Convention declares that the pure oral method ought to be preferred.
7. The school’s original name in 1880 was the Rakuzen-kai Training

Institute for the Blind. The name was changed to the Rakuzen-kai Training
Institute for the Blind and the Mute in 1884 and to the Tokyo School for the
Blind and the Mute in 1887.
8. However, the present school, the University of Tsukuba School for the
Deaf, regards its founding year as 1875, when the Rakuzen-kai group was
formed to establish a school for the blind and the deaf (Saito 2005).
9. They are the parents of Edwin Oldfather Reischauer (1910–1990), for-
mer U.S. ambassador to Japan (1961–1966) and professor at Harvard University.
10. Kawamoto later headed the Tokyo School for the Deaf and, after World
War II, became a professor at the Tokyo University of Education.
11. Chao and Chu (1981/1988) and Chao (1999) state that the Private Chi-
Ying School for the Deaf started out as the Private Chinese School for the Deaf

in Keelung, a northern seaport near Taipei. It was founded by Lu Junou and

Jiang Sinong, both of whom were teachers at the Nantong School for the Deaf
in Zhejiang Province in mainland China. Most of the teachers at the Keelung
school had graduated from the National Nanjing School for the Deaf and were
all signers of Nanjing Sign Language. Therefore, Nanjing Sign Language may be
a fourth influence on TSL.
12. However, MCCE (1999), seemingly a group of researchers who have
collaborated to publish sign language books, casts some doubt on this widely be-
lieved explanation. The group maintains that the Tainan school also had teach-
ers from Tokyo and that teachers were sent to the Taipei school from Osaka and
Nagoya; thus some uncertainty remains regarding the reasons for the dominance
of the Tokyo dialect of JSL in Taipei and of the Osaka dialect in Tainan.
13. In Smith (1989, 1990), these auxiliary verbs, all of which show the di-
rection of some action from the agent to the theme or from the source to the goal,
are named after the handshape that is used in each auxiliary verb. For example,
a handshape meaning “one” (only the index finger is extended, and the other fin-
gers are closed) is used for aux1.
14. I use English glosses to represent both JSL and TSL signs, following a
general convention in the literature of sign linguistics. With regard to readability,
however, I avoid using Japanese and Chinese glosses to represent JSL and TSL
signs, respectively. Whenever I need to specify whether a sign is from TSL or JSL,
I indicate the language name for such a sign (e.g., TSL airplane).
15. Woll (1984, 81) says, “The full list appears in the Appendix with the
Swadesh and Stokoe and Kuschel lists,” but the full list as well as other lists are
not actually included anywhere. Thus we have no way of finding out what items
she included.
16. The list prepared by McKee and Kennedy (2000) is actually composed
of 199 items since it includes two occurrences of nervous.
17. In Guerra Currie, Meier, and Walters (2002, 227), the authors identify
“similarly articulated signs” as those that have “approximately the same mean-
ing and the same values on any two of the three major parameters of handshape,
movement, and place of articulation.” They further explain that “[A] subset of
similarly articulated signs includes those signs that are articulated similarly or
identically on all three major parameters” (emphasis mine), and they call these
“equivalent variants.” In this regard, their “similarly articulated signs” are
slightly different from mine in that the latter do not include “phonologically
identically articulated signs.”
18. Quinto-Pozos (2002, 61) calls these “similarly articulated but semanti-
cally unrelated (SASU) signs.”
19. The results shown here are slightly different from those reported in
Sasaki (2003) after reanalyzing the data.

20. Two monomorphemic signs in JSL were realized as compound signs in

TSL. older-brother and younger-brother are monomorphemic in JSL (the
extended middle finger with the other fingers closed is moved upward for older-
brother and downward for younger-brother); in the corresponding TSL
signs, a bound morpheme that shows blood relationship is added at the outset of
the signs, resulting in compound signs. This bound morpheme is also found in
father, mother, grandfather, and grandmother in both JSL and TSL.
21. In one sign, the relation of hands is a mirror image across JSL and TSL.
In little, the Chinese character for “small” is represented by the two hands, one
with a 1 handshape, which functions as the middle vertical stroke, and the other
with a V handshape, which represents the two dots on both sides of the middle
stroke. In JSL, the 1 handshape is articulated by the nondominant hand (i.e., the
left hand for right-handed signers), and the V handshape is represented by the
dominant hand (i.e., the right hand for right-handed signers). In TSL, however,
this relationship is the opposite: The V handshape is represented by the non-
dominant hand, whereas the 1 handshape is articulated by the dominant hand.
22. See Sasaki (2005) for a lexical comparison of JSL and TSL with respect
to the differences in the movement parameter.
23. In the second half of her study, Woll diachronically compared lexical
items of BSL with regard to parameters such as “location of the sign, handshapes
of the left and right hands, orientation of the fingers, and movement of the
hands” (1987, 20) and found that handshape showed the greatest number of dif-
ferences (43 percent); the parameter with the next highest number was location
(24 percent); and the third was movement. In McKee and Kennedy (2000), hand-
shape also had the greatest number of parametric differences in all three com-
parisons between NZSL and ASL (13 out of 32 related signs), between NZSL
and Auslan (15 out of 41), and between NZSL and BSL (23 out of 47); move-
ment ranked second in all three comparisons (NZSL and ASL: 5 out of 32 related
signs; NZSL and Auslan: 10 out of 41; and NZSL and BSL: 10 out of 47).
24. However, I have observed that some native signers of JSL use the hand-
shape of TSL airplane, and I suspect that there may be idiosyncratic variations
between two handshapes with regard to ease of articulation.
25. “B handshape” refers to the handshape of the fingerspelled letter B in
ASL. This type of notation also applies to other fingerspelled letters and num-
bers, such as “S handshape,” “V handshape,” “1 handshape,” and so on.
26. The name “A-dot” is attributed to Stokoe (1960) and Stokoe,
Casterline, and Croneberg (1965), who used a diacritic dot to transcribe a sign
with the extended thumb.
27. In the literature of ASL, this handshape has traditionally been called the
G handshape, following the fingerspelled letter G, although both the thumb and
the index finger are extended in the actual fingerspelled letter G. For a clearer

distinction, I use “1 handshape” for a handshape in which only the index finger
is extended and the other fingers are closed.
28. This handshape is often offensive to people in the Western culture, but
it is used in signs in JSL and TSL, such as elder-brother and younger-
brother (in both JSL and TSL).
29. The seven unmarked handshapes that Battison (1978) has proposed are
the A handshape (all of the fingers except the thumb are closed, and the thumb
is beside the closed index finger), the S handshape, the B handshape, the 5 hand-
shape, the 1 handshape (“G handshape” in Battison’s terminology), the C hand-
shape, and the O handshape (all of the fingers are curved and together, and they
form the shape of the letter O).
30. In the field of sign phonology (cf. Brentari 2001), hand-internal changes
are sometimes treated in the movement parameter. However, in the present
analysis, these changes are considered to be those in handshape since they are in-
dependent of path movements and therefore can co-occur with path movements,
as in ASL throw, which uses a handshape in which the thumb, the index finger,
and the middle finger are curved so that they first form a circle (while the ring
finger and the little finger are closed), then the curved fingers open and are ex-
tended in the course of articulation (hand-internal movement), while the arm
makes a throwing motion (path movement).
31. Ichida (pers. comm.) points out that the TSL version of not-good
could be a compound sign in which good is followed by a marker for negation.
32. The algorithm for the calculation of the ease score is as follows:
(IE/SS P/JT) MOCof selected fingers
where IE/SS Independent Extensor/Sufficient Support; P/JT Profundus/Juncturae
Tendinum; and MOC Muscle Opposition in Configuration (Ann 1993, 163).
Each criterion is calculated as follows. The IE/SS is related to whether
each finger in this group has either an independent extensor or sufficient support
to extend, and the P/JT has to do with whether the middle, ring, and pinky fin-
gers are all included or all excluded from the group. If the answer is “yes,” a plus
value, which is equal to “0,” is assigned; if the answer is “no,” a minus value,
which is equal to “1,” is given. These values are added, and the sum is multiplied
by the value for the selected fingers as follows:
closed 0
bent 1
extended 2
curved 3
33. The values for the IE/SS and P/JT criteria in TSL airplane are both 1;
those in JSL airplane_are 0 and 1, respectively. For both TSL and JSL airplane,
the selected fingers are considered to be bent, not extended, according to Ann
(1993). For TSL airplane, (1 1) 1 2; for JSL airplane, (1 0) 1 1.

34. The ease score for the S handshape in JSL banana is automatically 0
since the ease score for all “one-group” handshapes (i.e., handshapes in which
all of the fingers act together — they are all either extended or closed) is 0. The
values for the IE/SS and P/JT criteria in the nondominant handshape of TSL
banana are both 1. For this handshape, the selected fingers are again considered
to be bent, not extended. For TSL banana, (1 1) 1 2.
35. Woodward (1993) also supports Fischer’s claim.
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McGraw-Hill.
———. 1987b. Taiwanese (s.v. Sign Languages). In Gallaudet encyclopedia of
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New York: McGraw-Hill.
———. 1989. The morphological characteristics of verbs in Taiwan Sign
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———. 1990. Evidence for auxiliaries in Taiwan Sign Language. In Theoretical
issues in sign language research, vol. 1, Linguistics, ed. S. D. Fischer and P.
Siple, 211–28. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
——— (Shi, W.-h.), and L.-f. Ting, eds. 1979. Shou neng sheng qiao [Your
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Linstok, 1978. Revised reprint, Burtonsville, Md.: Linstok, 1993.
———, D. C. Casterline, and C. G. Croneberg. 1965. A dictionary of
American Sign Language on linguistic principles. Silver Spring, Md.:
Linstok. Revised reprint, Silver Spring, Md.: Linstok, 1978.
———, and R. Kuschel. 1979. A field guide for sign language research. Silver

Supalla, T. 1998. Reconstructing early ASL. Paper presented at the Sixth

International Symposium on Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research,
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———. 2004. The validity of the Gallaudet lecture films. Sign Language
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the American Philosophical Society 96: 452–63.
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[Your hands can become a bridge], vol. 2. Taipei: Zhonghua minguo lon-
gren shouyu yanjiuhui [Deaf Sign Language Research Association of the
Republic of China].
Woll, B. 1984. The comparative study of different sign languages: Preliminary
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P. Boyes Braem, and Y. Lebrun, 79–92. Lisse, the Netherlands: Swets and
Zeitlinger.
———. 1987. Historical and comparative aspects of British Sign Language. In
Sign and school: Using signs in deaf children’s development, ed. J. Kyle, 12–
34. Multilingual Matters, vol. 33. Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters.
Woodward, J. 1978. Historical bases of American Sign Language. In
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———. 1993. Lexical evidence for the existence of South Asian and East Asian
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Part 3 Language Attrition

Evidence for First-Language Attrition
of Russian Sign Language among
Immigrants to Israel
Judith Yoel
You can not keep language safe and deep within you; it must get
exercise. You must use it, or else it gets rusty, atrophies, and dies.
Triolet (French/Russian bilingual)
People who immigrate to another country where the citizens speak a

different language stand a good chance of losing some of their first-
language skills. Often perceived as simply forgetting or regression, such
loss is known as natural language attrition.1 Linguistic research has
proven beyond a doubt that signed languages are natural modes of com-
munication that possess linguistic properties. This chapter discusses the
ways in which Deaf people who immigrate from one country to another
lose their native language skills over time when contact occurs between
signed languages.
ATTRITION OF SPOKEN AND SIGNED LANGUAGES
General Points
Attrition is defined as a gradual but progressive eroding of language

skills (Grosjean 1982). In 1980, at the inaugural conference on language
attrition in Pennsylvania, Bert Weltens stated that “broadly defined, lan-
guage attrition may refer to the loss of any language or portion of the
language by an individual or community. It may refer to the declining use
of the mother tongue skills by those in a bilingual situation or among
The epigraph to this chapter is drawn from Obler and Mahecha (1991, 53).
153
ethnic minorities in [some] language contact situations where one lan-

guage for political or social reasons comes to replace another” (1989,
51).2 Seliger’s comment that language attrition is the “loss of first lan-
guage by predominant use of the second language” is also particularly
relevant to this study (1991, 5–6). Attrition implies the degradation of
one’s linguistic ability in comparison to that of a fluent speaker of the
same language. The degree of loss differs from person to person, rang-
ing from minimal (in which an individual still feels comfortable with
the mother tongue but experiences some difficulty retrieving specific
lexical items) to more serious loss (in which interactive communication
is hindered or the individual claims no recollection of the native lan-
guage).
Two well-attested theories about the rate of first-language attrition
posit that (1) the attrition of any language, at any age, and under the
right conditions sets in quickly (Kennedy 1932; Godsall-Myers 1981;
Weltens 1989) and that (2) it occurs after an initial, undefined period of
no or little loss (called “stable competence”). According to the second
theory, a transitional period ensues, in which the individual who has ac-
quired a new language can move back and forth between languages.
When language loss sets in, it is characterized by “a decrease in one’s
speech repertoire” (Sharwood-Smith 1983, 51). No single, current model
of first-language attrition can account precisely for the amount of lan-
guage loss or its effects on linguistic skills, which are affected differently.
Research suggests that phonology suffers minimally, whereas syntax is
more vulnerable. Violations of syntactic constraints appear in simple ut-
terances and commonly show the imposition of second-language syntax
upon that of the native language. A host of additional factors such as
age, language typology, language prestige, and the language learner’s per-
sonality may also contribute to first-language attrition.
Natural attrition (in contrast to pathological attrition, which is lan-
guage loss resulting from brain damage that occurs as the result of a
stroke, an accident, or senility) can be categorized as follows: (1) first-
language loss in a first-language environment (e.g., as it occurs with the
onset of old age); (2) first-language loss in a second-language environ-
ment (e.g., as it occurs among immigrant populations); (3) second-
language loss in a first-language environment (e.g., an English-speaking
person who learns French but lives in an environment that offers no op-
portunity to use it will eventually lose some French language skills); (4)
second-language loss in a second-language environment (e.g., as seen
154 : judith yoel

among immigrants who learn a second language but revert to their first
language in old age) (Gonzo and Saltarelli 1983).
The most common type is attrition of the first language in a second-
language environment, which is the focus of this chapter. I have adopted
Schoenmakers–Klein Gunnewiek’s (1983) definition of attrition because
it cites language contact within a community as a key cause of first-
language attrition, “a form of language change caused by a break with
the L1 [first-language] community, having as effects, a restricted use of the
L1 [caused by] intensive contact with the L2 [second language]” (cited in
Waas 1996, 36). Major notes that “an American who learns three words
of Japanese is unlikely to suffer any loss of English, while one who has
spent the last twenty years in Japan probably will” (1993, 463).
Language conflict and contact are essential factors in most cases of attri-
tion. Pavlenko (2002) states that, in most cases, L1 attrition does not
lead to a total loss of the L1 but rather to a convergence of the L1 with
the L2.
The area most commonly affected by attrition is the lexicon (Cohen
1989; Olshtain and Blum-Kulka 1989; Altenberg 1991). Lexical knowl-
edge is a complex process that encompasses more than merely recalling
and producing a word. It includes the meanings of words, connotations,
and an awareness of the appropriate linguistic and social circumstances
in which certain words, synonyms, and idioms appear (Weltens and
Grendal 1993). Not all lexical items are equally vulnerable to attrition.3
Linguistic frequency plays a significant role in the susceptibility of lexi-
cal items to loss. Both infrequent and frequent items are at risk of loss.
On the one hand, since infrequently used words are difficult to access,
the second language may replace the first. On the other hand, frequently
used and readily accessible words in the second language may replace
first-language items. Generally, high-frequency items in the first language
appear to show more stability. Kaufman and Aronoff (1991) cite the
early loss of frequently used lexical items as one of the most puzzling fea-
tures of attrition. Various compensation strategies (e.g., paraphrasing
and the use of fillers) often accompany attempts to recall lexical items.
ATTRITION IN SIGNED LANGUAGE
Signed language is perhaps the only focus of study left relatively un-
touched by cross-linguistic theories of attrition. Although Battison and
First-Language Attrition of Russian Sign Language : 155

Jordan noted as early as 1976 that “when a signer of one country moves
to a country where there is a different sign . . . they forget their own sign
as rapidly as they acquire the signs of the new country,” anecdotal ac-
counts of a similar process come from Deaf people who have relocated
from one country to another, where a different signed language is used
(Battison and Jordan 1976, 63; Grosjean 1982). Gerner de García (1995)
follows the immigration of a nine-year-old deaf child from Mexico to the
United States. She presents an account of the girl’s attempt to cope with
two new languages (English and ASL), two new cultures (both American
and American Deaf culture), and her (and her family’s) language conflict
within a multilingual context. Grenoble (1992) set out to study Russian
Sign Language through Deaf ex-Russians living in the United States but
was forced to abandon the work when it became clear that “the inform-
ants exhibited significant interference from ASL in their RSL” (1992,
337).
The Current Study and Frameworks for Analyses
This chapter investigates the first-language attrition of Russian Sign

Language among Deaf immigrants to Israel. It is an examination of first-
language loss in the retrieval and production of lexical items, not of at-
trition as it may be evident in data from natural discourse. The mass im-
migration of Jews from the former Soviet Union (FSU) to Israel enabled
this research.4 Among nearly one million immigrants who have left the
FSU since 1988 are an estimated one thousand Deaf immigrants. This
preliminary examination of attrition in a signed language focuses on the
lexicon and tests the widely held assumption that frequently used lexical
items are vulnerable to attrition. Evidence for language loss is investi-
gated through two theories: (1) the model of ethnolinguistic vitality (Giles,
Bourhis, and Taylor 1977; Allard and Landry 1992) and (2) the theory
of interference (Freed 1982; Lambert and Freed 1982; Seliger 1991).
Evidence of attrition is provided as a result of L2 interference in the L1
and also by the existence of lexical gaps.
The model of language vitality first introduced by Giles, Bourhis, and
Taylor (1977) places social and psychological processes in sociocultural
contexts and relates them to interethnic linguistic behavior. “[The re-
searchers] developed a taxonomy of support variables believed to affect
a group’s Ethnolinguistic Vitality (EV),” defining EV as “that which
makes a group likely to behave as a distinctive and active collective en-
tity in inter-group situations” (Allard and Landry 1992, 176). The model
156 : judith yoel

of language vitality has been supported by Giles, Bourhis, and Taylor

(1977), Bourhis, Giles, and Rosenthal (1981), Giles and Byrne (1982),
Bourhis and Sachdev (1984), and Hamers and Blanc (2000), all of whom
have noted a correlation between social and psychological variables and
linguistic behavior (Allard and Landry 1986).
The model adapted by Allard and Landry (1986, 1992) outlines spe-
cific variables that contribute to the loss or maintenance of language, cul-
ture, and identity when two or more groups come into contact. During
language contact, users of one language interact with users of another
language or language variety. In situations of prolonged contact one lan-
guage usually exerts some influence on the other. The more support there
is for a demographic, sociopsychological, or psychological variable, the
more likely it is that a group will remain an entity with its language, cul-
ture, and identity intact. A lack of support, however, means that aspects
of language, culture, or identity may disappear. “Additive bilingualism
occurs when conditions favor the development and maintenance of the
maternal language, while permitting the learning and use of a second
language. Subtractive bilingualism [and attrition] occurs when condi-
tions favor the development of a second language to the detriment of the
maternal language” (Allard and Landry 1992, 173). The three levels of
the model of ethnolinguistic vitality include (1) the social level (demo-
graphic, political, economic, and cultural capital), (2) the sociopsycho-
logical level (interpersonal contacts, the media, and educational sup-
port), and (3) the psychological level (language aptitude and vitality
beliefs), and they are outlined later with regard to Deaf immigrants from
the FSU to Israel. The application of the EV model shows the linguistic
outcome for Deaf people.
The theory of interference is one of the most widely accepted expla-
nations of language loss (Freed 1982; Lambert and Freed 1982). The
basic premise is not that the first language is erased from memory but
that contact with an additional language causes difficulty in recalling the
other language. It assumes that language contact causes a situation of
language conflict, which results in linguistic conflict for the individual; in
turn some reduction in the linguistic system will occur. The theory posits
interplay between dynamic language processes. It predicts that the exist-
ing patterns of the first language will be modified and reorganized in
favor of the second or additional languages. Interference may be spo-
radic and idiosyncratic (Grosjean 1989). Lexical items in the L1 may
eventually be lost or replaced by items in the L2.

Hypothesis
This study hypothesizes that with limited opportunity to use and

maintain Russian Sign Language (RSL), immigrants are forced to master
the new signed language, Israeli Sign Language (ISL), and that the latter
will eventually encroach upon the former. The outcome is attrition of the
first-language (RSL) lexicon.
Subjects
Twenty-two deaf Russian immigrants (eight males and fourteen fe-

males) were located through my connections in the Israeli Deaf commu-
nity. Subjects were videotaped following a Hebrew language class for
new immigrants in Rishon L’Zion (near Tel Aviv) and at weekly Deaf
club gatherings in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa.5 Seven of the subjects
have been deaf since birth; twelve became deaf before the age of three,
and three became deaf between the ages of five and ten. Fifteen people
claimed hearing parents, seven have immediate family members who are
deaf (e.g., parents or siblings), and two people have extended family
members who are deaf (e.g., a grandfather and cousins). The subjects
also include two married couples and a father-and-daughter pair.
The majority of subjects learned RSL at school between ages four and
six. Four subjects said they had learned RSL before attending school.
Three subjects learned RSL postlingually. The latter became deaf at ages
five, seven, and ten and learned sign language at ages seven, ten, and thir-
teen, respectively, when they enrolled in residential schools for Deaf stu-
dents. Educational policy in the former Soviet Union, until quite recently,
mandated residential schools for everyone. Therefore, all of the subjects
received a similar education. In the residential schools for Deaf students
in the FSU, RSL is restricted to mainly to out-of-class activity. Its use in
the classroom is discouraged and still results in occasional punishment
even today. Outside of a formal class setting, RSL is the main means of
communication between Deaf students.
In order to determine whether one’s L1 communicative performance
has suffered attrition, evidence of a certain level of L1 competence must
first exist. No testing was conducted to affirm this. However, since all of
the subjects attended residential school (where RSL served as the primary
means of communication), identified themselves as members of a larger
Deaf community in the FSU, and stated that RSL was their native lan-
guage, it was assumed that all of them were competent users of RSL.
158 : judith yoel

Factors such as the onset of postlingual deafness or immigration at a young

age may account for varying degrees of RSL proficiency. In no way is it im-
plied that these subjects form a homogenous linguistic or cultural group.
The subjects came from various regions of the former Soviet Union
(e.g., Saint Petersburg, Moscow, the Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia,
Moldova, Kazakhstan, and Cryazovets). Michael Pursglove, cofounder
of the Bilingual School for the Deaf in Moscow, notes, “the influence of
region is unclear. Just how many different signed languages are currently
in the FSU is an open question. Different reference works present differ-
ent signs for the same items, but whether these are dialectal variation, id-
iolectal or generational boundaries is unknown.” (Pursglove 1995, per-
sonal communication). Some evidence of regional lexical variation
exists. A different manual alphabet for the Baltic republics of Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania suggests that perhaps a different signed language
is in use there (Grenoble 1992). However, RSL researcher Galina
Zaitseva (1996) asserts that, due to centralized schooling and national
sociocultural organizations, even in the various republics (e.g.,
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, the Ukraine), where different spoken languages
exist, a single signed language is found throughout the FSU. Moreover,
RSL researcher Anna Komorova (1994) suggests that a “standard” vari-
ety of RSL is understood by all users, as are regional varieties. For polit-
ical reasons and so that individuals may assert their identity and diver-
sity, she urges users to employ terms such as “Uzbek Sign Language” and
“Georgian Sign Language,” but they seem to prefer the term “Russian
Sign Language.”
Over such a large geographical area, some degree of dialectal varia-
tion seems inevitable, and this may have some effect on the subjects’ per-
formance. In order to deal with regional variation, three different inter-
preters from three different regions (i.e., the Ukraine, Saint Petersburg,
Uzbekistan) viewed the data independently of one another. In analyzing
the data, for instance, one subject’s articulation of a single-handed sign
was deemed unacceptable by interpreters from Saint Petersburg and the
Ukraine, but the interpreter from Uzbekistan declared the same sign an
“acceptable variation.” Although the interpreters were able to shed some
light on the effects of regional variation, questions remained. (Questions
also remained because six of the twenty-two subjects did not complete
the questionnaire as to where they were originally from in the FSU).
The subjects, who had immigrated to Israel between the ages of eleven
and sixty-six, ranged from sixteen to seventy. Four of them had studied

in an Israeli high school, in classes for Deaf and hard of hearing pupils.
Two of the subjects are still in school; two completed their formal edu-
cation in grade nine, two in grade ten, three in grade eleven, and ten after
twelve years of formal education. Three of the subjects (a social worker,
a theater director, and a physical education teacher and sports coach)
hold university (or equivalent) degrees. Others include a welder, two
seamstresses, and a draftsman. At the time the study was conducted,
their period of residence in Israel ranged from one to twelve years. The
limited number of subjects in this study posed limitations for a statistical
analysis. As a result, this chapter focuses on providing ethnographic
analyses, and showing (via raw numbers and percentages) how Deaf par-
ticipants fare on tasks of lexical retrieval, describing in general presumed
cases of language loss.
Methods
Each subject completed a questionnaire in written Russian since, for

each of them, Russian had been the language of instruction at school. A
native Russian speaker and an RSL interpreter aided those who required
help; she explained the questions and sometimes wrote the subjects’ an-
swers. The questionnaire was divided into three sections: (1) general
background (e.g., age, level of schooling, type of education, profession,
year of immigration), (2) linguistic background (e.g., mother tongue, age
at which the subject became deaf, the age of first exposure to signed lan-
guage), and (3) present linguistic circumstances (e.g., involvement in the
Deaf community in the FSU and Israel, extent of interaction with other
users of RSL and ISL, language use in specific domains). The question-
naire allowed the subjects to express themselves in ways not possible in
the study’s two experimental language situations.
The subjects performed two language tasks. Before each one they
were given instructions in written Russian, and a native signer of RSL
confirmed their comprehension. Each individual was videotaped consec-
utively performing the two tasks in a familiar and comfortable setting
(the subjects’ classroom or Deaf club). Each person signed to a native
RSL signer. A camera operator was also present. No help or feedback
was given.
The first task, adapted from the Language Skills Attrition Project
(LSAP) (Lambert and Moore 1986), was used in the first testing of fre-
quently named items in attrition studies. The process assumes that (1) a
connection exists between conceptual recognition and the two signed
160 : judith yoel

languages; (2) the second language may interfere with the production of
the first language; and (3) frequency is particularly vulnerable in the lex-
icon of the attriter (i.e., the individual who is losing first-language skills).
It entails recognition, visual processing, retrieval from the mental lexi-
con, and production. This analysis considers only the surface produc-
tion: picture naming. Presented with twenty-two large (32 cm 24 cm),
colorful illustrated prototypes of everyday items on laminated cards
(e.g., an airplane, a bed, an umbrella, a tea cup), subjects were instructed
to sign what they saw. When an item was signed, the next card was
shown. There was no measured time-reaction analysis. When the sub-
jects failed to name an item, the next card was presented; all previously
unnamed items reappeared once at the end. The pictures represented
items familiar in both cultures and consisted of nouns only, as concrete
items are the most unambiguous. Also included were a limited number
of distracters — identical signs in RSL and ISL (e.g., an airplane, a fish).
The second lexical task was adapted to examine first-language attri-
tion by Waas (1996), who administered it to native German speakers in
Australia. This study replicates Waas’s experimental situation, and the
only difference is language modality. The task involved RSL facility, re-
call, and production of lexical items. Such tests are common in attrition
studies because of the insight they offer into lexical organization (Cohen
1989). This task focuses on the items produced. The subjects had a sixty-
second time limit, within which they were asked to list as many different
animals as possible. The precise instructions were “I would like to see
how many different animals you can name in sixty seconds. Any animal
will do.” Subjects who stopped signing before the time limit was up were
encouraged to continue and were recorded for a full sixty seconds.
Three experienced RSL interpreters and I analyzed the data. All three
interpreters are children of Deaf adults (CODAs), and RSL is their first
language. All continue to use RSL in a personal and professional capac-
ity. In addition to testing the subjects, I conducted two face-to-face in-
terviews with two individuals actively involved with Deaf immigrants
from the FSU to Israel.6
ANALYSIS
Ethnolinguistic vitality examines the potential long-term conse-

quences of a language for a speech community. No single factor indicates

a language’s future; rather, it is the combination of sociological, so-

ciopsychological, and psychological factors that indicates whether a lan-
guage will be maintained.
Ethnolinguistic Vitality:The Sociological Level
In order for a language to survive, a critical mass of language users who

possess a certain degree of power is required. The sociological level of EV
posits a correlation between the sociological strength of a language com-
munity, its demographics (numbers), the group’s political representation
and strength, and its economics (monetary resources) and cultural capital.
Specifically, the more active a group is, the more likely it is to survive.
demographic capital
In the FSU, residential schools not only provided a shared experience
for Deaf people but also physically united people in central locations that
served as the base for an informal Deaf collective, which often included
adult residential villages, social clubs, and sports clubs.7 However, upon
immigration to Israel, their demographic status weakened significantly. A
government-imposed policy of absorption resulted in the dispersion of
Deaf people across the country, often to peripheral areas, where few
other Deaf people were living.8 With Deaf initiatives located in central,
urban locations, they are inaccessible to many Deaf immigrants. With in-
sufficient finances to relocate or travel to cities, many Deaf newcomers
rarely experience social and linguistic interaction with other Russian
Deaf people. Thus, their demographic capital in Israel is weak.
political capital
Politically, Deaf people had weak status in the FSU. The national or-
ganization for Deaf people, VOG (All-Russian Federation of the Deaf),
is administered mainly by hearing and hard of hearing individuals. In his
assessment of obstacles that Deaf people encounter (Pursglove and
Komorova 1991), Igor Abramov (1993), chair of the Moscow branch of
VOG, states that, until 1991, Russian legislation categorized Deaf and
blind people, as well as those with physical disabilities, together under
the single heading of what translates into English literally as “invalidity”
(Pursglove 1995, 58). Of the twenty-six laws, drafts, ministerial orders,
and presidential decrees in the FSU that relate to Deaf people (e.g., re-
garding studying, traveling, owning a car, buying medicine), few were en-
forced (Pursglove 1995).
162 : judith yoel

The FSU has a chronic shortage of interpreters for Deaf people, but
when they are available, their services are free of charge. A 2006 update
ensures that each individual is entitled to thirty hours of interpretation a
year; beyond that, each person must pay the equivalent of ten U.S. dollars
for such services. In contrast to Western countries, Deaf people in the FSU
have few Deaf role models. In Israel, Deaf immigrants also have little
power. They fall under the auspices of national social services, disability,
National Insurance, the Ministry of Absorption, and other institutions;
but little consideration is given to this group’s special needs. A govern-
ment budget allotted specifically for Deaf immigrants lasted a single year
(1998–1999) before it was discontinued. A branch of the National
Association for the Deaf in Israel, specifically for Deaf immigrants, exists
mostly in name. Its chair, Emmanuel Slutzsky, sends an annual report to
the Israeli Minister of Absorption and summarizes progress in three areas:
absorption, education, and culture. Activities, funded in part by the
Ministry of Absorption, have been restricted to two social gatherings
(1999 and 2000). Slutzsky states that, “[d]espite the rich experience and
high level of Deaf Russians in Israel, they have contributed little [in
Israel]” (Slutzsky, 2000, personal communication). Having gone from a
weak status to a still weaker one, it will be difficult for this group to se-
cure the political capital necessary for recognition and representation.
economic capital
Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the government disability
payment for Deaf people afforded them relative stability. Currently, the
only state pension for Deaf people is insufficient for a person to live on.
Once every five years, the government of the FSU reimburses Deaf people
for the purchases of necessary technological devices (e.g., fax machines,
modems, pagers, flashing indicators, and teletext cellular phones). While
economic capital for Deaf people in the FSU is currently meager, they have
at least some opportunities to progress beyond a secondary school edu-
cation (e.g., a hair-dressing school, a school for drama and mime, and a
pharmaceutical college for Deaf people [Ignatova 1996]).
In addition, a number of institutions have separate tracks for Deaf peo-
ple within a hearing environment. These include a technical school (with
Deaf faculty) and a teacher-training college that trains graduates of the
Moscow Bilingual School for the Deaf to be teachers of Deaf children.
Moreover, special agreements exist, such as that with the Moscow city au-
thorities, whereby a certain number of Deaf individuals are provided with

training and employment (ibid.). Moreover, VOG operates sixty-three

factories employing Deaf people in the production of a variety of goods.
In 1991 legislation was changed so that no Deaf VOG employee could be
fired (Komorova 1994), and in 1993 an independent organization was es-
tablished to defend the economic and social interests of Deaf people
(Ignatova 1996).
Upon immigration to Israel, Deaf Russians take a cut in their disabil-
ity payments. Immigrants struggle to find suitable employment and often
have to adjust occupations downward. Some fail to find any employment
at all. Emmanuel Slutzsky, a former VOG administrator in the FSU,
presently works with Deaf immigrants; he cites employment as the
biggest obstacle that Deaf immigrants must overcome. “It is impossible,”
he says, “for most [Deaf immigrants] to find work” (Slutzsky, 2000, per-
sonal communication). And there are fewer educational opportunities
for Deaf people beyond a secondary level. Education is often limited to
a five-month intensive Hebrew/ISL course. Deaf immigrants in Israel do
not yet fare well along the lines of economic capital.
cultural capital
Deaf cultural activities in the FSU, although not always formally de-
fined, supported, or recognized as such, were abundant. In 1995,
155,590 deaf individuals (more than half of the estimated 300,000 deaf
people in the entire FSU) were officially registered with the seventy-one
regional branches of VOG. The Moscow branch of VOG alone had
12,000 members (Pursglove 1995, 50). In the 1990s the FSU had more
than five hundred Deaf clubs, excluding Deaf athletic clubs, which are
numerous and play an important role in Deaf cultural life. Church serv-
ices (e.g., Russian Orthodox and Evangelical) are available in RSL. Deaf
people in the FSU have their own organization of painters (kolorit), writ-
ers and poets (kamerto), and a theater (Teatr Mimiki i Zhesta). They also
boast the purported oldest Deaf theater in the world, which was estab-
lished in 1962 and is considered prestigious by Deaf and hearing people
alike (Pursglove 1995). Despite the existence of what appears to be a
community, Russia has no linguistic concepts to portray this. Galina
Zaitseva (1996), Russia’s foremost researcher of RSL, employed the term
mikrosotism [microsocietal unit] in an article to refer to the Deaf com-
munity in the FSU.
In Israel, the notion of a “community” for immigrants is weak.
Opportunities for immigrants to become culturally involved with other
164 : judith yoel

Russian Deaf people are limited. Of the fourteen Deaf clubs, only three
(Tel Aviv, Bat Yam, and Ashdod) have gatherings specifically for immi-
grants. The largest club in Tel Aviv holds a weekly gathering in RSL for
people from all over the country. In other words, their interaction with
other Deaf people who use RSL (outside of the immediate family) is de-
termined by external and practical factors such as physical proximity
and accessibility (e.g., means and cost of transportation). At the remain-
ing eleven clubs, Deaf Russians and Israelis socialize together using ISL.
Immigrants attend functions, lectures, courses, sports events, trips, and
holiday celebrations with Israeli Deaf people. At the only sports club in
Tel Aviv these two groups also mix. However, participation in these ac-
tivities is restricted by both individual and institutional financial hard-
ship. For example, the Deaf club in Haifa has cut back all activities — for
Russians and Israelis alike — to a single day a week. Immigrants who re-
quire basic services are affected by fiscal restraints. For instance, the only
RSL interpreter in the northern region explained in an interview with me
that, at least temporarily, her services have been officially suspended.
Deaf individuals must do without Hebrew/ RSL translation services un-
less they are able pay privately (Haimov, 2000, personal communica-
tion). Cultural opportunities have declined upon immigration.
ANALYSIS
Ethnolinguistic Vitality:The Sociopsychological Level
Whereas the sociological level of EV is concerned with the group as a

whole, the sociopsychological level is concerned with individuals, specif-
ically with the extent to which they are exposed to their native language
and culture. If the exposure is substantial and positive, language mainte-
nance is the expected outcome; if it is limited and negative, language loss
is anticipated. Exposure occurs mainly through one’s network of inter-
personal contacts (family and friends), exposure to the media, and edu-
cation. These experiences are an essential step in the eventual formation
of culture-related attitudes and values.
interpersonal contacts
Ethnic groups find vitality at not only a sociological but also a so-
ciopsychological level. In doing so, they must have access to people like

themselves, with whom they can establish relationships. Deaf people in

the FSU have strong ties to one another. There is a high rate of endoga-
mous marriage, and they share numerous social and life-experience com-
monalities that extend beyond their hearing loss and common language.
Deaf people identify with other Deaf people. They interact on formal lev-
els (e.g., schools, church), as well as informal levels (e.g., social activities,
long-lasting school ties). In the last decade, technology (e.g., the Internet)
has brought increased opportunities for interaction between Deaf and
hearing people. Public awareness of Deafness and RSL among hearing
people has increased.
Deaf immigrants to Israel share commonalities, but they lack oppor-
tunities to interact with others like themselves. Situations of immediate
family support often remain intact because Deaf people from the FSU
tend to immigrate with extended family members, but gone is much of
their familiar social network (e.g., acquaintances, friends, colleagues).
Although they have a desire to connect with people from the home coun-
try, logistically this is difficult to accomplish. For Deaf immigrants, the
degree of contact with other Deaf people from the FSU is not only re-
duced but also lacking.
the media
In an examination of American Sign Language, Baker suggests that
“the absence or presence of a minority language in the mass media (e.g.,
television, radio, newspapers, magazines, tapes and computer software)
affects the status of a language” (1996, 55). “The attitude toward
Russian Sign Language prior to glasnost and perestroika that ranged
from downright hostile to lukewarm has improved, although some prej-
udice against signed language remains” (Pursglove and Komorova 1991,
5).9 Some elevation in the status of Deaf people has occurred, which, in
turn, has sparked new professional activity. For example, in 1996, a
Moscow conference on sign language and Deafness drew 150 delegates
from the FSU and other countries (Zaitseva, Pursglove, and Gregory
1999, 13), and an RSL dictionary is available on the Internet (Kautz
2004).
Because of limited media exposure to RSL, Deaf immigrants in Israel
experience further isolation. Videotapes, as well as cable and satellite tel-
evision channels, are available in Russian but without subtitles or cap-
tioning. For those immigrants who can afford the costly cable television,
a single brief report is broadcast daily in Signed Russian, not RSL. There
166 : judith yoel

is a Russian press in Israel, but for some Deaf people, written language
is difficult. The reading level of Deaf people is documented as frequently
lagging behind that of their hearing peers (Zaitseva 1996; Baker 1999).
Deaf immigrants must rely mainly on the Hebrew and ISL media (e.g.,
captioned television broadcasts and Internet sites) for news and impor-
tant information. Even with these opportunities, Deaf immigrants from
the FSU have limited exposure to media in ISL — and even less to RSL.
educational support
Before 1990, all Deaf children in the FSU attended residential schools.
As is common in Eastern Europe, residential villages formed the contin-
uation of the residential school experience. Until recently, there was no
mainstreaming or inclusion in the FSU (Pursglove 1995). Educational
methods for Deaf pupils were based on oralism, which is regarded there
as successful. Oral methods are praised, while views to the contrary are
rarely expressed in the news media. When they are, they are accompa-
nied by hostile editorial comments, state Pursglove and Komorova
(1991), educators of Deaf people in the FSU. Signed Russian, also re-
ferred to as “calqued speech,” is the dominant language used in the
media, although Deaf people have protested that these broadcasts are
sometimes difficult to understand.10 Signed Russian has the syntax and
lexicon of spoken Russian and is not a natural sign language. Until re-
cently, “[the] Signed Russian [seen mainly in the media] was clearly the
high style at which speakers aimed, believing it to be more prestigious
than RSL” (Grenoble 1992, 323). However, RSL remains the main
means of communication among Deaf people.
In 1992, the Moscow Bilingual School for the Deaf was established.
Pursglove, one of its founders, reported to me that this is the only school
in the FSU that teaches both in and about RSL. Its teachers travel to
other schools to disseminate a bilingual/bicultural ideology; although
people have expressed interest and support, no other schools for Deaf
children have developed a similar ideological approach. Graduates of the
Moscow Bilingual School have continued their education by attending
the Center for Deaf Studies (established in 1993), Moscow City
Pedagogical University, and Teacher Training College Number Four to
become teachers of Deaf children. Educational support for RSL is
thereby slowly increasing.
For the Deaf child who is a part of a linguistic minority, uses a ma-
jority language in the classroom, and lives in a place where both the

educational and societal aim is assimilation, the outcome is acculturation

(Baker 1996). In Israel, Deaf immigrants who are too old to attend
school study in an ulpan (immigrant language class) provided by the
Ministry of Absorption. No separate or specific instruction is offered in
ISL; rather, a Deaf Israeli teacher teaches Hebrew to newcomers via ISL.
The immigrant, therefore, learns two new languages, Hebrew and Israeli
Sign Language, simultaneously.
Battison and Jordan (1976) present evidence that Deaf people under-
stand a foreign signed language with more ease than a hearing person
would understand a foreign spoken language, thus making the afore-
mentioned situation possible but by no means easy. Although the visual
manual modality is familiar, Russian Sign Language and Israeli Sign
Language are mutually unintelligible. Furthermore, classes are not re-
stricted to immigrants from the FSU. “The individual is often so over-
whelmed at attempting to master a new sign language at the same time
as a new oral language that they cannot hear, written in a different al-
phabet, that even socializing opportunities are limited,” says one new
immigrant who experienced this system.
For young Deaf immigrants, school could provide a setting in which
to use RSL. At home, opportunity to use RSL is limited because only
about 10 percent of Deaf children have Deaf parents. Moreover, educa-
tional policy in Israel does not recognize or foster the maintenance of
RSL. Deaf immigrants from the FSU have failed to have any impact on
the Israeli educational system for Deaf people. Deaf youngsters must
therefore adapt to what exists, and that means learning ISL as soon as
possible, with social acceptability a significant added incentive. The cur-
rent educational setting and policy fail to provide circumstances that en-
courage the retention of the native culture or mother tongue.
Ethnolinguistic Vitality:The Psychological Level
The final stage of EV relates to the individuals and specifically to their

language skills. This stage is characterized by two main factors: (1) the
language aptitude and competence of the individuals and (2) their
cognitive-affective disposition, their beliefs about learning an additional
language, and their use of that language. At this stage, the individuals
ask themselves questions such as, is my language inferior, is my cultural
or linguistic group stable or unstable, and to which group do I currently
belong? The answers contribute to their linguistic disposition and ulti-
mately have an impact on their identity and language use. Language
168 : judith yoel

choice can serve as a marker of identity. In turn, people’s outlook re-

garding their language use and affiliation with a speech community has
an impact on the viability of that language.
language aptitude and vitality

beliefs
Although RSL is the dominant language of Deaf people in the FSU, an
air of inferiority has surrounded it until fairly recently. A host of factors
(e.g., an oral method of education and a preference for Signed Russian)
contributed to this perception. It was not until 1990 that RSL was offi-
cially recognized, and even then it was considered only an “auxiliary lan-
guage” (Pursglove 1995, 56). As cross-cultural contact between Deaf
people increased, the term “Russian Sign Language” gained currency
only in 1991 by analogy with British Sign Language and American Sign
Language. The phrase did not appear in print until February 1995, when
a footnote drew attention to the new terminology (Zaitseva and Gregory
1995). The term “RSL” is still often misunderstood, and many people
assume that Signed Russian and Russian Sign Language are one and the
same. At a conference on Deaf education in Moscow (1999), upon hear-
ing the term “Deaf pride,” which is commonly used within European
and North American Deaf populations, one hearing participant objected
with “What rubbish! What is there to be proud about in that?”
(Pursglove, 2002, personal communication). In the FSU, a low group
image is reinforced by the dominant hearing society.
Deaf immigrants are forced to decide which linguistic and cultural
group they belong to and which group they want to identify with. This
is only partially determined by language competence, for linguistic be-
havior is also formulated in terms of language attitude. They must also
begin to establish personal goals in the new surroundings, and their de-
gree of success in fulfilling them will have some effect on language main-
tenance or loss (Allard and Landry 1992, 175).
Deaf immigrants are further challenged by the necessity of mastering not
one but two new languages (one signed and one written) and two new cul-
tures (one Deaf and one hearing). This task is intensified by the weakening
of the aforementioned sociological and psychosociological factors that af-
forded them some stability in the past. The weak status of RSL brought
from the FSU, as it was reinforced by a dominant hearing society, in com-
bination with the new and difficult circumstances and the daily challenges
that accompany immigration, may result in an unstable linguistic situation.

CONCLUSION
The Model of Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Deaf Immigrants
An analysis of the ethnolinguistic vitality of Deaf Russian immigrants

to Israel reveals that their demographic status is weak, their economic re-
sources are meager, and their prospects for employment are few. They
lack opportunities to interact with other Deaf Russian immigrants, and
the occasions for social interaction they once had have been substantially
diminished. They have limited exposure to the media. Furthermore, im-
migrants of school-attending age are encouraged to assimilate. They are
faced with major decisions to make about their identity with regard to
culture, subculture, and language. These conclusions are confirmed by
the information in the questionnaires the subjects completed and the
ethnographic interviews I conducted.
The result for both the individual and the language group is that the
new culture does not perceive their language, RSL, as “significant.” As
RSL becomes increasingly difficult to access, the predicted outcome for
RSL users in Israel is eventual subtractive bilingualism. The strong need
to master additional languages and participate in local culture comes at
a cost. In order for Deaf immigrants to become independent and suc-
cessful members of Israeli society they must, at least to some degree, as-
similate culturally and linguistically.
ANALYSIS
The Questionnaire
The results of the questionnaire administered to the subjects reveal a

situation of language conflict that arose as the result of RSL users com-
ing into regular contact with ISL and ISL users, as well as spoken and
written Hebrew. Although the questionnaires admittedly had some
drawbacks (e.g., introspective and subjective reporting; fewer than 100
percent of the questionnaires were completed), the answers provide an
overall picture of the situation. Details such as the extent of interaction
with other RSL and ISL users varied from person to person, depending
on whether the subject had immediate family members who were Deaf
and the subject’s physical location and proximity to Deaf clubs. Three
170 : judith yoel

main trends appeared. The first was a positive attitude toward the L2 in
that the subjects expressed a willingness to learn ISL. Their statements
included the following: “I would like to know ISL and Israeli culture,”
“ISL and Hebrew are important because I live in Israel,” “ISL is getting
increasingly easier for me to learn,” and “ISL is easy.” The subjects’
growing comfort with ISL hints at the more prominent role ISL may play
in their future.
The second trend was an indication of disruption in RSL fluency.
Although some subjects were reluctant to directly acknowledge any dis-
turbance, others specifically mentioned accounts of unintentionally
mixing up the two languages, signing the “wrong language” to some-
one, and unconsciously alternating between RSL and ISL (also known
as code switching, which occurs when a person uses one language in
combination with another). Code switching can occur at the level of a
sign or phrase or as the result of a pragmatic situation. It may be the
outcome of an attempt to retain continuity and nativelike fluency in
spite of changes induced by language contact. (Code switching as it is
used in this study refers only to the use of different signed languages,
not to a convergence of spoken and signed language systems. Code mix-
ing, a similar term, is often used in signed languages to indicate lan-
guage use that incorporates elements of spoken language into signed
language use [Davis 1989].) Quinto-Pozos (2002) discusses code
switching as a natural consequence of language contact, not as a strat-
egy specifically related to language attrition. In an interim form of lan-
guage, the L1 may fill in when the L2 is not known (Romaine 1989),
and the L2, it seems, may fill in when the L1 is temporarily inaccessible.
Subjects admitted experiencing difficulty in the momentary retrieval of
RSL lexical items.
A third trend — the replacement of the L1 by the L2 — was also evi-
dent. This was not investigated further due to the lack of more detailed
questions pertaining to domain-specific language use. Fishman defines a
domain as a “sociocultural construct abstracted from topics of commu-
nication, relationships between communicators, and locales of commu-
nication, in accord with the institutions of society and the spheres of a
speech community” (1972, 442). The subjects generally indicated that
RSL dominates mainly in a household domain, while ISL is becoming in-
creasingly common as the dominant language in the areas of employ-
ment and social interaction.

The Theory of Interference
experimental task #1
The articulations of signs contrary to the citation form or of those
deemed unacceptable by native users were assumed to be evidence of
cross-linguistic lexical interference, that is, the L2 (ISL) in the L1 (RSL).
The term “miscues” (Goodman 1986) is adopted in order to avoid value
implications (e.g., guessing what the signer meant or speculating about
how the error may be connected to the subject’s background). Although
the term can include idiosyncrasies and other temporary production mis-
takes (e.g., slips of the hands; Klima and Bellugi 1979), it generally refers
to “errors.” Miscues include forms articulated in ISL instead of RSL ei-
ther partially or in their entirety. They also include forms with one or
more parameters (e.g., handshape, movement, orientation, location) that
are different from the stipulated form, as well as anomalous forms, such
as a combination of the L1 and L2 or the L2 form followed by an L1
self-correction.
The first experimental task, picture naming, required the retrieval and
production of frequently used lexical items, including many common
items such as household objects (e.g., bed, key), easily recognized ani-
mals (e.g., hen, polar bear), and vehicles (e.g., bus, truck). This task
served as the main source of evidence of language interference. The low-
est rate of accuracy for any of the subjects was 50.0 percent, and the
highest was 91.2 percent. The average rate of error was 25.0 percent. On
average, subjects correctly named 16.5 out of the 22 items.
The most obvious example of second-language intrusion was the un-
conscious presentation of an ISL sign when only RSL was requested. For
example, in RSL, bed is formed by bending the extended middle two fin-
gers on each hand and bringing the fingertips into contact. A slight hand-
internal movement (e.g., bouncing) may occur, but no movement occurs
beyond this. The index finger and pinky remain extended upward, form-
ing an iconic representation of a bed. In its place, one subject used the dis-
similar ISL sign (see Figure 1), parting the flat hands with extended digits
outward, followed by contact between the back of the hand and the cheek,
as if mimicking the resting of the head on the hands or a pillow. The indi-
vidual continued without any obvious realization that what was produced
was not RSL. The very different RSL sign is illustrated in Figure 2.
Two subjects correctly signed RSL bed but followed it with the sec-
ond movement from the ISL sign. This can also be interpreted as con-
172 : judith yoel

figure 1. bed (ISL)
figure 2. bed (RSL)
figure 3. bed A miscue

combination of RSL
and ISL
structed action (Metzger 1995), a combination of characterization and

classifiers to convey characteristics or events. The sign commonly used,
the citation form, although requested, was not produced. Another per-
son signed the correct form in RSL but also articulated the second
movement of the ISL sign (i.e., bringing one hand up to his cheek). This
hand used the hand configuration seen in the RSL sign instead of the ISL
hand configuration — with all fingers extended. In yet another incident,
illustrated in Figure 3, a subject combined the two different articulations,
retaining the hand configuration of RSL but adding the path of move-
ment to each hand seen in ISL. The subject did not appear to be aware
of any error.
Signs composed of both RSL and ISL seem to be the result of language
contact. Tarone’s (1980) study of the attrition of Russian in an English-
speaking environment documented similar lexical innovations. Signers
struggled with some signs. For example, the RSL citation form of rain-
bow (see Figure 4) is articulated with a single hand forming an arc-
shaped path from one side to the other slightly above the signer’s fore-
head. (Whether the sign moves from left to right or right to left depends
on the signer’s hand preference). In ISL, also illustrated in Figure 4, two
hands in a position of initial contact just above the forehead move down-
ward from the central location in opposite directions, forming an arc.

figure 4. rainbow: RSL rainbow: (ISL) rainbow: Miscue
Other phonological parameters (e.g., a C hand configuration and palm

orientation) are identical. Miscues also included signing an otherwise
correct RSL sign at an incorrect location (e.g., at chest height instead of
over the forehead) and an ISL sign at the same location, when RSL was
requested (the latter is illustrated in Figure 4).
Other subjects used incorrect hand configurations in otherwise correct
signs (e.g., an incorrect G and an incorrect U handshape instead of an
open handshape with all fingers extended and bent, a C handshape).
These types of miscues have plausible explanations (e.g., a miscue in the
location parameter may be a phonological reduction); monolingual na-
tive language users and stable bilinguals also show evidence of miscues.
This study examines the hypothesis that miscues may result from lan-
guage contact and the notion that their relation to attrition is worth ex-
ploring. In combination with additional factors (e.g., a rate of error of
25 percent), such a relation may exist.
When spoken languages come into contact with one another, speakers
commonly paraphrase in order to overcome the resulting confusion
(Andersen 1982; Cohen 1989). When one subject looked at the illus-
tration of the rainbow and signed after rain [pause] rainbow, self-
explanation seemed to aid recall ability in that the target sign appeared
after a related sign and a long pause. Semantically related items or one
that is used when another is present may direct the signer toward the tar-
get item. There was also evidence of the subjects’ failing to produce the
target item and instead providing a semantically related item such as
rain-shower instead of umbrella; food and eat instead of sand-
wich; and kettle and drink instead of teacup. Also present was the
classifier for “vehicle,” which was used in place of a specifically re-
quested and clearly illustrated taxi, bus, and car.
174 : judith yoel

When subjects realized interference had occurred, RSL self-repairs

sometimes followed. When a speaker’s fluency has decreased due to lan-
guage attrition, it is common for the number of self-repairs to increase
(Hansen 1999). When signs were identical in RSL and ISL, a rate of error
of 10 percent still occurred, explained perhaps by the too-good-to-be-
true phenomenon. That is to say, momentarily confused by the existence
of a single sign common to both languages, subjects produced an anom-
alous form. Feeling a need to clarify their utterances, they added infor-
mation even when it was not specifically requested. For example, after
signing “toothbrush,” two subjects added “toothpaste.” In an attempt to
move between languages, the subjects also produced incorrect word-for-
word renditions. For example, in RSL, “polar bear” is bear-white,
whereas in ISL it is bear-north. One person signed bear-north in RSL.
Although this is comprehensible, it is nevertheless a miscue.
It has been observed that bilinguals who experience L1 interference in
the L2 have a greater tendency to make literal translations from the L1
to the L2, particularly if the L2 is weaker (Dornic 1978). In this case, it
was the L2 that interfered with the L1. Similarly, Waas (1996, 43) ob-
served literal cross-linguistic translations among German speakers in
Australia, who, for example, labeled an octopus an “ink fish,” a German
concept imposed upon English.
Interestingly, two unanticipated features also showed evidence of in-
terference: mouth patterns and fingerspelling. Mouth borrowings involve
the articulation of words, partial words, and lip movements that are de-
rived from contact between signed and spoken languages. “It is clear that
mouthings arise in a situation . . . of strong language contact” (Sutton-
Spence and Boyes Braem 1998, 4).11 However, mouthings can also be an
indication of contact between two signed languages. In some signs, it is
obligatory to move the mouth, without voice cocurrently with its pro-
duction, as an integral part of the sign (Siple 1973; Boyes Braem and
Sutton-Spence 2001). This is particularly common in European signed
languages, including RSL and ISL. (This type of mouth movement is un-
related to those that co-occur with signs related to emotion and to mouth
gestures, which have no connection to spoken language.)
In RSL signs requiring mouthing, three different subjects signed RSL
but simultaneously mouthed Hebrew words. For example, while signing
“bed” in RSL, the subjects either said or formed the word “divan,” which
is “bed” in Russian (with no voice); but one subject signed the RSL sign

while simultaneously orally producing “mita,” the word for “bed” in spo-
ken Hebrew. Another subject, upon viewing the illustration of a “sand-
wich,” signed “food” in RSL and orally produced “Burger Ranch,” a
popular Israeli hamburger chain. Attrition may be one factor that lies be-
hind such behavior, but there also may be others. Quinto-Pozos (2002)
discusses mouthings as they occur in a situation of language contact, with
no relation to attrition. Mouthings from different spoken languages are
also common in the signing of Deaf users in nonattrition situations (e.g.,
Deaf users of Langue des Signes Québécoise [LSQ], American Sign
Language [ASL], and French and English in Quebec, Canada).
In fingerspelling, handshapes represent the letters used in the orthog-
raphy of the spoken language. Russian Sign Language and Israeli Sign
Language have different manual alphabets. RSL fingerspelling substituted
for signs with an existing citation form. One subject confidently declared,
“There is no sign in RSL [for rainbow],” and proceeded to spell r-a-i-n-
b-o-w in the Russian manual alphabet. Three RSL interpreters and sev-
enteen other signers (including the subject’s daughter) confirmed the exis-
tence of an RSL sign for “rainbow.” In this particular incident, it may be
that fingerspelling substituted for a temporarily inaccessible sign.
However, in some signed languages, even in monolingual sign use, a sign
exists for a concept (e.g., car), yet the signer sometimes chooses to fin-
gerspell. In this study, when subjects fingerspelled, there were no instances
of the ISL manual alphabet used in place of the RSL manual alphabet, of
letters from one system inserted into the other, or of vowels systematically
omitted in RSL fingerspelling, as is common in ISL/Hebrew fingerspelling.
The final example of interference involves abandoned attempts. On
items they failed to name, 5.3 percent of subjects indicated a desire to
pass. I assume that interference of the L2 in the L1 (and perhaps fre-
quency, too) is partly, if not largely, responsible for the momentary inac-
cessibility of a commonly used L1 item.
E x p e r i m e n t a l Ta s k # 2
In Experimental Task #2, the animal recall task, 97 out of a total of
237 (40.9 percent) signs were miscues of some form. In this same task
conducted in spoken language, Waas (1996) noticed that her subjects
were unsure whether the names they offered were in the L1. Seven sub-
jects signed the names of animals in ISL instead of RSL. These included
cat and mouse, forms with a relatively high degree of frequency in the
L2, thus presumably explained by rapid and initial L2 access. Other ISL
176 : judith yoel

signs implied that the subjects’ immediate environment influenced their

choice of items. Species typical of the L2 locale (e.g., snake, scorpion,
and crab) were signed in ISL, but none of these appeared in RSL, where
these animals are less common.
Waas’s (1996) research revealed that her subjects avoided typically
Australian animals (e.g., koalas, emus, kangaroos) in German. They
named an average of 10.5 animals within the sixty-second time limit. Six
subjects opted out of the task before a full minute had passed. One sub-
ject stands out, for he named only four animals, all with L2 interference,
and refused to complete the task. An explanation for this may lie in the
subject’s profile. Lavi (a pseudonym) is sixteen years old and immigrated
to Israel with his parents when he was twelve. In the FSU, he attended a
residential school for Deaf children for six years. He now attends an
Israeli high school and is in a class for Deaf students. In class, he uses
mainly Signed Hebrew, and with his classmates, he uses ISL. He lives at
home with his Deaf parents, who use RSL. He said he communicates
with them in a mixture of RSL and ISL. He was unable to fill out the
questionnaire alone since he is no longer able to read and write Russian
sufficiently. He stated that he remembered very little RSL. In his ques-
tionnaire, he said that he felt a part of Israeli culture but not of Russian
culture (only one other subject indicated this). He was not even willing
to reveal what his name had been in the FSU before it was changed to
the name he uses in Israel, saying it was “no longer important.”12
As lexical items, signs for animals can be difficult to analyze for in-
terference because constructed action is often employed. In other words,
the signer changes perspective and “becomes” the object signed, acting
out animal movement or portrays a salient feature of that animal (e.g.,
ears, paws). Initially referred to as “puppeting” (Mandel 1977) because
the movement is usually restricted to the hands (Coulter 1979, 2), this is
more commonly referred to as constructed action (Metzger 1995;
Aarons and Morgan 2003; Quinto-Pozos 2006) — the signer’s construc-
tion of another’s actions (Aarons and Morgan 2003). Constructed action
is not limited to animate objects. In Figure 5, RSL airplane is illus-
trated. Also illustrated in Figure 5 is the way in which one subject em-
ployed constructed action to indicate the wings of an airplane (and the
RSL sign wings).
The utilization of constructed action can provide additional informa-
tion such as mood or emotion or give human characteristics to an inan-
imate object (Quintos-Pozos 2006). Its usage was perceived to stray from

figure 5. airplane: RSL wings: RSL: Miscue
the citation form requested and thus deemed a miscue. Constructed ac-
tion may be an alternative strategy utilized by signers to fill in for a mo-
mentarily inaccessible form. It enables them to demonstrate their “inten-
tion” based on the characteristics of an animal or the salient features of
an object.
RESULTS
Lexical Gaps
In spite of the simple name-this-item procedure in the first task, lexical
gaps were evident. Miscues included signing comb in neutral space in
front of the body at chin height rather than in its correct location close to
the signer’s head or hair. (In ISL, comb is also articulated on the signer’s
head). Incomplete signs also appeared. One was both incomplete and am-
biguous. In RSL, truck comprises two parts: (1) a two-handed A hand-
shape articulated close to the chest (as if grasping a steering wheel) and
(2) the outline (made by the thumbs and index fingers) of a rectangular
shape over one’s shoulder. With only the initial part evident and the sec-
ond half omitted entirely, the subject’s sign was also car in RSL and ISL.
This can be interpreted as a coordinate term. Olshtain and Barzilay’s
(1991) study of attrition among native Hebrew speakers in an English-
speaking environment revealed the use of coordinate terms, which are
linked grammatical elements of equal status. For example, “rabbit” was
uttered when the person really wanted to say “gopher.” Table 1 compares
the use of coordinate terms that were observed in this study of RSL.
The significance of visual perception in signed languages came to light
with the subjects’ failure to retrieve the target sign. In its place they pro-
duced anomalous variations, constructed action, miscues, or other RSL
178 : judith yoel

table 1. Use of Coordinate Terms in RSL
Picture Represented in the RSL Picture- Coordinate Terms (Miscues)

Naming Task (Experimental Task #1) Produced by Subjects in RSL
armchair bench
bus cara
taxi
teacup (with saucer) drinking glassb
hot tea
feet (from the ankles down) legs
legs
legs
legs
legsc
rooster hend
sandwich hamburger
bicycle motorcycle
truck car
Each of the forms in the left-hand column exists as a commonly known sign in RSL.
a. The use of car instead of bus and truck can also be attributed to the use of constructed
action in place of a specific sign.
b. Miscues such as this one could indicate cultural issues at work. Russians often drink hot
tea from what is considered a drinking glass (for cold drinks) in Israel, while Israelis would
be more likely to drink hot tea from a teacup with a saucer (as illustrated).
c. This was used by five different subjects and may be evidence of language contact from
Hebrew. In spoken Hebrew, the same word can refer to both “legs” and “feet.” It may also
be due to the fact that, despite the existence of citation forms, it is not uncommon for sign-
ers to point downward to indicate “feet.”
d. The picture clearly identifies a rooster with a large, red crown on its head, but for some
individuals, language use as it relates to real-life experience would not prompt them to dif-
ferentiate between a rooster and a hen.
signs that shared the same general shape as the target item. In some cases
overlapping phonological parameters cropped up as well. airplane, for
example, was produced both as the constructed action seen in Figure 5
and as a variation of this (also a constructed action), with both arms out-
stretched straight from the shoulder, extending beyond the conventional
signing space. While acknowledging the role of visual representation in
this modality and the fact that constructed action is commonly used in
signed languages, the evidence also suggests that visual representation
may play some part in the miscues. Additional examples, some with over-
lapping phonological parameters, included mushroom for umbrella
and bridge for rainbow.13

Since there is no semantic relation between an umbrella and a mush-

room in one case and a rainbow and a bridge in another, one may assume
the commonality is the visual representation and perception of shape. In
RSL, umbrella is a one-handed representation of a person holding an
umbrella (as an instrumental classifier would normally be used) (Supalla
1986), as illustrated in Figure 6.14 A satisfactory and equally accepted
variation is a two-handed representation of an umbrella pole being held
over one shoulder. Miscues of umbrella included a 1 HC with a bent B
handshape formed over the index finger to represent the shape of an um-
brella (which may also be interpreted as a classifier) and the same sign
again but with a thumb in place of the index finger (which the interpreters
judged unacceptable). See Figure 6. Another miscue was the formation of
RSL mushroom, where a bent 5 handshape appeared under the bent B
(Figure 6). (Regional variation did not appear to account for any of the
miscues.) The observations are summarized in Table 2.
Variations of RSL rainbow included signs that were initiated with
contact at the nondominant hand and signs that were not. This was de-
termined irrelevant, as both are acceptable. Miscues included incorrect
handshape (e.g., a G and U handshape instead of a C handshape), in-
correct location (e.g., at chest height),15 an incorrect path of movement
(e.g., an ISL, not an RSL, path of movement), and an incorrect articula-
tion of RSL bridge rather than rainbow.16 Figure 7 and Table 3 sum-
marize these observations.
In Waas’s (1996) use of the animal recall task, her results in spoken
language ranged from “a great deal of attrition” to “little, if any at all,”
depending on the individual. However, she concluded that most of her
subjects had “extensive difficulties in retrieving animal names in the L1”
(ibid., 142). This task provided the majority of evidence for the lexical
figure 6. umbrella: RSL umbrella: Miscue mushroom:

RSL: Miscue
180 : judith yoel

table 2. Articulations of RSL umbrella, mushroom, and rain-shower
Number Palm
Sign Handshape of Hands Location Orientation Movement
umbrella closed A one over toward the None

variation #1 shoulder body
umbrella closed A two over toward the None
variation #2 shoulder body
umbrellaa bent B two over facing None
variation #3 over 1 shoulder down
(classifier) handshape,
contact at
palm
umbrella bent B two in front facing None
over of signer down
extended
thumb,
contact
at palm
mushroom bent B over two in front facing None
closed 5 of signer down
handshape,
contact at
palm
rain-shower bent B one next to facing yes (fingers
ear down wiggling)
Miscues are indicated by bold text.

a. This sign is acceptable if it is interpreted as a classifier for some type of umbrella (e.g.,
beach umbrella, sun umbrella).
The phonological parameter of nonmanual signals (e.g., facial expression) was not con-
sidered.
figure 7. rainbow: RSL: Miscue bridge: RSL: Miscue

table 3. Articulations of rainbow and bridge in RSL
No. of Initial Path of

Sign Handshape Location Hands Contact Movement Orientation
rainbow C forehead one yes (3) left to palm

handshape no (14) righta outward
rainbow U forehead one no left to palm
handshape right outward
rainbow G forehead one no left to palm
handshape right outward
rainbow C chest two no outward palm
handshape from outward
center
bridge bent B chest one yes right to palm down
handshape lefta
Miscues are indicated by bold text.

a. Whether a sign moves from right to left or left to right may be influenced by the signer’s
preference of a dominant hand.
One subject did not sign the requested form. He declared that there was no RSL sign for
“rainbow” and then fingerspelled the word.
The phonological parameter of nonmanual signals (e.g., facial expression) was not con-
sidered.
gaps in RSL. Despite the task’s relatively short time limit (sixty seconds),
subjects repeated animals (e.g., horse was mentioned twice nonconsec-
utively in RSL). Subjects repeated animals in both languages (e.g., mouse
first appeared in ISL, then in RSL).
The research of Turian and Altenberg (1991) presents various meth-
ods of compensation employed by children undergoing L1 attrition. The
compensation methods, as exemplified, are used by adults as well. One
strategy consisted of grouping animal types together to ease the demand
on the recall process. Strings included domestic animals (e.g., cow, goat,
sheep, horse, donkey) and African animals (e.g., elephant, giraffe,
monkey, hippo, zebra). One individual, after confirming comprehen-
sion of the instructions, set the list within a context and signed when
boy poss. 1 have chicken, cow, horse, dog, cat.
One subject’s idiosyncratic addition of adjectives to the animals did
not increase the number of items; however, it may have provided the in-
dividual with the impression that he was buying time until he could re-
call another item (e.g., elephant big, snake long, fish lots). The
182 : judith yoel

naming of one animal often seemed to trigger the next (e.g., jackal,
wolf, f-o-x, rooster, chicken, lion, tiger, cat).
Fingerspelling was more prevalent in the second task. The patterns in
which it appeared suggest that fingerspelling is a strategy employed by
some of the subjects to name a lexical item when the RSL sign does not
readily come to mind. When subjects are pressured by a time limit, fin-
gerspelling presumably substitutes for signs and fill lexical gaps. Subjects
fingerspelled animals that others signed and vice versa. Examples included
c-h-i-c-k-e-n, f-o-x, l-i-o-n, h-o-r-s-e, c-o-w, and z-e-b-r-a. Those who
fingerspelled an animal later signed the same animal; other subjects began
to fingerspell but did not continue because they recalled the sign and pro-
duced it. A total of thirteen animals were fingerspelled in the RSL manual
alphabet, all of which have corresponding signs. Although this could be
indicative of idiosyncratic style, the evidence seems to suggest that those
who fingerspelled more often may have done so because they were unable
to recall the target lexical item within the time allotted.
Accompanying this task was an enhanced degree of physical unease
not observed in the previous task, no doubt the result of a combination
of having to retrieve L1 items that had not been accessed for some time
and thus were not readily accessible, the pressure of a time limit, and the
presence of a video camera directed at the signer. Some examples include
holding both arms outstretched, palms up and shrugging (a familiar I-
don’t-know gesture common in spoken languages), as well as tapping the
forehead with an index finger (which can be interpreted as attempts to
trigger the memory). These may also be evidence of idiosyncratic habits.
One subject apologized for his inadequate RSL skills. Additional re-
marks concerned memory (e.g., “I don’t remember,” “I forget,” “I must
remember”), requests for a break (e.g., “Just a minute”), and an inabil-
ity or a desire not to carry out the task (e.g., “I can’t do this,” “That’s
all,” “Enough!”). Furthermore, four subjects requested help from the
nonparticipating addressee, the native RSL signer to whom they were
signing. Waas’s (1996) study of attrition revealed similar remarks, such
as “Is a minute up yet?” and “I’m finished” (41).
CONCLUSION
The results of this study suggest that a signed language user who
moves from one place to another, where people use a different signed

language, exhibits certain reoccurring linguistic behaviors. In terms of

Russian Deaf immigrants who have immigrated to Israel, if one consid-
ers ethnographic vitality, the individual experiences significant changes
with regard to social, sociopsychological, and psychological factors;
Deaf people who immigrate to Israel encounter numerous challenges and
find their status there generally weakened. One of the most significant
challenges is establishing a new identity in a new culture and community
through language use.
With regard to the two data-elicitation language tasks, the Deaf im-
migrant signers also illustrated reoccurring behaviors, mainly in the form
of miscues and temporary production errors. These appear to be con-
nected to language contact between the different spoken and signed lan-
guages. Some evidence exists for the influence of one signed language on
another. Quinto-Pozos (2002) has established that, when Mexican Sign
Language and ASL came into contact with one another (in Texas), inter-
ference from one language appeared in certain domains of the other (e.g.,
phonology and the use of nonmanual signals). The nature of the data
from this current work suggests that, when RSL and ISL come into con-
tact, the subjects’ use of RSL is affected by exposure to ISL. The data also
demonstrate that it is possible to look at how first-language attrition may
function in a signed language. Conclusive evidence, however, would re-
quire the systematic examination of additional variables. This prelimi-
nary examination of RSL and ISL in contact with one another demon-
strates the complexity involved in examining language loss. It also adds
perspective to the ways in which languages in contact are affected and
how they function. Furthermore, it has implications for further research
about how attrition can apply to language of a visual-gestural modality,
which in turn has implications for the human capacity for language.
NOTES
1. Early work on “language decay,” as it was once called, was mainly of a

pathological nature (e.g., senility, aphasia, brain damage resulting from stroke or
accident).
2. Workshops on first-language attrition have since been held at the
Second-Language Research Forum (Madison, Wisconsin, 2000) and the Third
International Symposium on Bilingualism (Bristol, United Kingdom, 2001).
3. Lexical items thought to be relatively immune to attrition include “well-
learned items . . . tied to a redundant cognitive structure” (Power 1993, 230),
184 : judith yoel

items learned as part of an original or unique learning experience, routinelike

processes (e.g., counting, days of the week, prayers; Berko Gleason 1993), and
emotion-laden words (e.g., curses, body parts, body functions; Weltens 1989).
4. The term “Former Soviet Union” refers to what was once the USSR.
The more common “CIS” (Commonwealth of Independent States) does not in-
clude the three Baltic states and Georgia. Since the subjects in this study stemmed
from one of those areas, CIS was not adopted.
5. This setting required that subjects switch from language to language. To
reduce language interference, the questionnaire was administered between the
language class and the videotaping of data, ensuring that the subjects had to
move only from written Russian to RSL, without adding Hebrew and ISL.
6. The first interview was conducted with E. Slutzsky, a sixty-year-old
Deaf sports instructor originally from Moscow. At the time of the interview, he
had lived in Israel for seven years with his Deaf daughter. Formerly employed
in the FSU as a sports instructor and the administrator of a sports club, he
manages Israel’s only sports club for Deaf people (for both new immigrants
and Israelis), which meets at the Helen Keller Center in Tel Aviv. The second
interview was conducted with E. Haimov, a forty-two-year-old hearing daugh-
ter of Deaf parents, who has lived in Israel since 1988. She worked as a sign
language interpreter in the FSU and is currently employed as a nurse and an
RSL interpreter in Israel. Information from these interviews was transcribed
and confirmed when necessary. Additional information was obtained by corre-
spondence with M. Pursglove, cofounder of the Moscow Bilingual School for
the Deaf.
7. The characteristics of an informal Deaf collective suggest that Deaf peo-
ple in the FSU may form a “community.” Although a lack of reference to the
term “community” has been noted (Pursglove and Komorova 2002), the notion
of a Deaf community in the FSU has not formally been studied.
8. Government policy in Israel, until mass immigration from the FSU, con-
sisted of gathering new immigrants in an absorption center to ease their transi-
tion into society. Once the number of immigrants increased significantly, a pol-
icy of “direct absorption” was adopted, whereby new immigrants were placed
directly into the communities in which they would live. These areas consisted
mainly of development towns and outlying areas.
9. Glasnost was a policy introduced by Gorbachev in 1985 to encourage
openness in the USSR. Perestroika was a system of economic and bureaucratic
reforms for restructuring the USSR introduced by Gorbachev in 1987.
10. The term “calqued speech,” as it is used in Russian, is not related to the
linguistic process of borrowing and literally translating semantic items and word
combinations from one language to another.
11. Mouthing is not connected to vocalization, which is idiosyncratic
and can be related to personal style, educational background, or pragmatic

circumstances. Mouth patterns observed among the subjects can also be related
to a number of sociolinguistic variables, such as culture, age, and dialect.
12. It is common practice in Israel for immigrants, especially children, to
change their original Russian first names to Hebrew names.
13. The five major phonological parameters of signed languages are loca-
tion, movement, handshape, orientation, and nonmanual markers (e.g., facial ex-
pressions, mouth movements). Despite the vast number of possible combina-
tions, only those that conform to phonological constraints are permitted.
14. The use of an instrumental classifier in place of a sign was observed in
this study elsewhere in the picture-naming task, specifically in toothbrush,
where, in three instances, the sign was not made with a 1 handshape but instead
with a closed fist that represented holding a toothbrush.
15. As previously mentioned, although the chest may be interpreted as a re-
duction in location, in light of the evidence it is considered a miscue. The signer
was a high school student with a higher than average rate of error. Moreover, the
sign was articulated in combination with an incorrect path of movement (e.g.,
from a central location instead of from one side to the other) and with two hands
instead of one.
16. I was unable to explain why “rainbow” might be confused with
“bridge.”
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bilingual lexicon, ed. R. Schreuder and B. Weltens, 135–56. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins.
Yukawa, E. 1996. L1 Japanese attrition: Three case studies of early bilingual
children. Paper presented at the symposium on language attrition in cross-
linguistic perspective at the Eleventh World Congress of Applied Linguistics,
University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland, August 4–9.
Zaitseva, G. and S. Gregory. 1995, Developing collaborative research projects
in bilingual education: Russia and the UK, In Proceedings of the 18th
International Congress in the Education of the Deaf, 22–26. Tel Aviv:
Ramot.
Zaitseva, G. 1996. The use of different language means in the bilingual ap-
proach. In Deaf children and bilingual education: Proceeding of the
International Conference on Bilingual Education of Deaf Children, 162–68.
Moscow: Zagrey.
———, M. Pursglove, and S. Gregory. 1999. Vygotsky, sign language, and the
education of deaf pupils. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 4(1)
(Winter): 9–15.

HOYER_Sign_Pozos_Gaul_193027 7/30/07 11:27 AM Page 193
Part 4 Foreign Assistance

and Language Contact
Albanian Sign Language: Language Contact,
International Sign, and Gesture
Karin Hoyer
After World War II, Albania was the most inaccessible country in
Europe. The Communist regime under the longtime party leadership of
Enver Hoxha was characterized by isolation from the rest of the world,
propaganda, and political persecution. When people adjusted their TV
antennas to illegally receive broadcasts from Yugoslavia and Italy, deaf
people were sometimes able to get a glimpse of Italian signed news pro-
grams. Manipulation of one’s TV antenna was, however, a very danger-
ous act because one never knew who in the neighborhood was spying for
the regime. A suspicious-looking antenna was enough of a crime to re-
sult in imprisonment.
Living in Communist Albania was a challenge for everyone.
Moreover, the lives of deaf people were, to a great extent, determined by
the rules set by hearing people, who regarded visual communication in
public as shameful. Many deaf people were thus socially isolated within
their hearing family. An important consequence of this was that no Deaf
community emerged despite the fact that a school for deaf children was
founded in the 1960s. According to Andoni, Shabani, and Baçi (2003),
the collapse of Communism and the opening up of the country in the
1990s enabled linguistic minorities to come out of the woodwork and
become visible in Albanian society. The end of the isolation meant free-
dom to move about the country and to think freely. For deaf people, this
new era signaled the genesis of a community and the rapid development
of a language that has come to be known as Albanian Sign Language
(AlbSL).
In this chapter, I discuss the post-Communist situation in Albania
with regard to deaf people and Albanian Sign Language, including the
recent development of AlbSL as a result of its contact with International
Sign. I also discuss the relationship between conventional, emblematic
gestures in use among Albanian hearing people and their apparent influ-
ence on the signs of AlbSL.
195
A RECENT HISTORY OF ALBANIA AND ITS DEAF PEOPLE
In this section, I provide a short overview of the recent history of

Albania, the situation of deaf people there during the Communist
regime, and the recent and current state of deaf education. I also discuss
the establishment of a Deaf organization after the opening up of the
country and its activities during the first five years of the new millen-
nium.
A Balkan country, Albania is situated north of Greece, east of Italy
(on the other side of the Adriatic Sea), south of Serbia and Montenegro,
and west of the former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (FYR
Macedonia). Modern Albania, which has a long and belligerent history,
was first inhabited in the centuries before Christ. After enduring several
invasions and the rule of various conquerors, the people of the region in
1912 proclaimed their independence (Prifti 2002). During World War II,
the country was occupied by Italy, and after the war, the Communist
Party in Albania seized power.
In the 1990s, the opening up of the country was characterized by po-
litical and economic instability. The Democratic Party, the first non-
Communist party in the postwar era, was founded in 1990. In 1997, col-
lapsing pyramid schemes caused rioting all around Albania. In 1999, in
response to the Serbs’ attack on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, NATO
started an air war in neighboring former Yugoslavia. Hundreds of thou-
sands of Kosovar refugees crossed the border into Albania and were wel-
comed into the homes of Albanians as a token of the strong tradition of
hospitality of these long-suffering people. Today, Albania is taking its
first tentative steps toward real democracy — hoping for future member-
ship in the European Union.
The population of Albania is about 3.2 million.1 According to SIL
Ethnologue, the majority of the population claims Standard Albanian
(Tosk) as their mother tongue. Spoken minority languages are Gheg (an
Albanian variety spoken in the northern part of the country), Greek,
Macedonian, Romani, Romanian, and Serbian. The Albanian National
Association of the Deaf (ANAD) estimates the deaf population to be
about three thousand, but no reliable numbers are available.
During the Communist regime, deaf education was rooted in oralism.
An elementary school for deaf children was established in the capital of
Tirana in 1963. However, many deaf children from poor families in
mountain villages have never had a chance to attend this boarding
196 : karin hoyer

school. They still live isolated from other deaf people, hidden by parents
who consider their deafness a shameful punishment from higher forces.2
In addition to spoken Albanian, teachers, at least in part, also used
fingerspelling in the classroom. According to the executive director of
ANAD, Eduard Ajazi, a former student of the school in Tirana, the
school’s teachers visited the Soviet Union in the 1960s to obtain training
in deaf education within an oralist philosophy. Pursglove and Komarova
(2003, 257) maintain that, in the Soviet Union, “the oral tradition pre-
dominated, especially after Stalin appeared to advocate for it in 1950.”
In the Soviet era, sign language was not allowed in the classroom, al-
though fingerspelling was used. In the 1970s (before Albania’s alliance
with China collapsed in 1978), the school collaborated with China. The
school in Tirana is still the only educational institution for deaf people
in Albania.
After finishing their schooling, the majority of the pupils usually re-
turned to their homes in the countryside and no longer socialized with
other deaf people. This was especially true for the deaf women, who
were guarded in their homes by their fathers and brothers and later by
their husbands or sons. However, deaf men living in the same cities or
villages would meet with each other (Eduard Ajazi, pers. comm., March
10, 2005). Before Communism collapsed in 1990 and ANAD became an
active organization at the beginning of the new millennium, the deaf peo-
ple of Albania did not gather in an organized way on a regular basis.
The isolation and lack of interaction were the result of several factors.
During the Communist era, no one was encouraged to think or act
freely; on the contrary, such independence was actively prohibited.
Moreover, attitudes toward people with disabilities were negative.
Andoni, Shabani, and Baçi (2003) show that even a declaration of be-
longing to a certain linguistic minority group (e.g., Romas, Egyptians,
Bosnians, Serb-Montenegrins) was too daring and could entail negative
social and political consequences. In addition, the Communist regime did
not allow the population to move around freely within the country.
In 1993, ANAD was established, and in 1996, it became a member of
the World Federation of the Deaf. But it was not until deaf Albanians
contacted the Finnish Association of the Deaf (FAD), which resulted in a
cooperative agreement between FAD and ANAD, that ANAD became an
active organization. In 2000, an Organizational Support Project, funded
by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, was launched within
ANAD.3 In 2000, a group of five deaf Albanians visited Finland and
Albanian Sign Language : 197

FAD for two weeks. Eduard Ajazi, who was one of the members of the
group (pers. comm., March 10, 2005), commented about the eye-opening
experience of coming from formerly isolated Albania and encountering
many new concepts through his interaction with an almost one-hundred-
year-old Deaf organization. Unknown to many deaf Albanians was a
whole new world of ways to run an organization democratically (e.g.,
the process of decision making, financial management, and activities
such as advocacy work). Also, seeing the equipment (e.g., visual or vi-
brating alarms) used by deaf people in some countries was another novel
experience. These new domains of knowledge led to a need for linguistic
signs that did not yet exist in their vocabulary. This need became even
more urgent when ANAD began implementing the organizational train-
ing provided by the advisors from abroad.
I have been working as a sign linguist for FAD since October 2002 and
am responsible for advising and training deaf (and hearing) Albanians in
planning, organizing, and implementing sign language work within
ANAD.4 The long-term goal of this work is to improve the status of AlbSL
so that it will be recognized as the first language (i.e., primary language or
mother tongue) of deaf people. One of the objectives of the project was to
document sign language use on video and to publish a description of part
of the lexicon. A videocassette and a booklet dictionary titled Gjuha e
Shenjave Shqipe 1 [Albanian Sign Language 1], containing about 250 sign
entries and signed example sentences, were released in 2005. For the doc-
umentation of the language and the publication, I worked with two deaf
Albanian research assistants, Brunilda Karaj and Florjan Rojba, as well as
a group of fifteen deaf persons from different parts of Albania.
At present, AlbSL is not acknowledged at any official level, and it
does not receive any institutional support whatsoever. Because it is not
used in any official domains, its use is not tied to any political or eco-
nomic power. There are no professional sign language interpreters in
Albania, and within ANAD only two hearing persons have received
some basic interpreter training through the Organizational Support
Project.* No hearing adult children of deaf adults who sign have been
found; if there are any, presumably they could function in some capac-
ity as interpreters. Albanian Sign Language is used only within the
emerging Deaf community.
*However, after a lot of lobbying, funding was arranged for a two-year in-
terpreter training project, which started in Spring 2007.
198 : karin hoyer

THE TRANSITION FROM TRADITIONAL VISUAL-GESTURAL

MEANS OF A COMMUNICATION BASED ON FINGERSPELLING
TO A MORE EXTENSIVE USE OF ALBANIAN SIGN LANGUAGE
In this section, I discuss observations made during sign language work

of the traditional visual-gestural means of communication based on fin-
gerspelling, as well as the expansion of the sign vocabulary and language
use of deaf people in Albania today. I suggest that the absence of a Deaf
community during the Communist regime impeded the development of a
full-fledged sign language. In addition, I discuss possible consequences of
external language-planning activities when not enough indigenous lan-
guage users are involved. The section ends with a brief discussion about
the name of Albanian Sign Language in Albanian.
When I arrived in Albania for the first time at the end of 2002, I was
told that those who had attended the school for deaf students used to
communicate with each other by fingerspelling Albanian words with a
one-handed alphabet and interspersing a few signs. I call these indige-
nous signs, in contrast to the new signs that have appeared through lan-
guage contact situations after the collapse of Communism.5 Hearing
teachers in the school for deaf children reported the nonexistence of any
sign language in Albania; they told me that only daktilim (“finger-
spelling”) was used.
My first impression concurred with this because the deaf people who
were neither frequent participants in ANAD activities nor in contact
with people from the organization relied heavily on fingerspelling and
mouthing of Albanian words. However, those who had been actively in-
volved in the organizational work and received training from (or been in
contact with) foreign advisors during the last three years used consider-
ably more signs. They were mainly present and former members of the
board and staff of ANAD (most of them from the capital of Tirana).
Despite their more frequent use of signs, their language still lacked signs
for certain semantic fields such as color and kinship terminology.
This observation of a more frequent use of signs among deaf people
in Tirana is also in accord with the findings of a data collection survey
that was carried out in 2003 and 2004 with 136 informants. Florjan
Rojba, one of the Albanian deaf research assistants who conducted the
interviews, reported that the 41 deaf interviewees from Tirana relied
more on signs in their communication than did those from the provinces,
who relied more on fingerspelling. When interviewing deaf people in the

provinces, Rojba had to use more fingerspelling in order to be under-

stood (pers. comm., March 30 and April 13, 2006).
Once I began my work, I found, however, that the traditional visual-
gestural communication method based mainly on borrowing from
Albanian (fingerspelling) had linguistic features. Evidence for this was
present at all linguistic levels. At the beginning of the sign language proj-
ect, we made a preliminary inventory of the handshapes in use in
Albania, and here we reached full consensus among the working group
members.6 There was much discussion about indigenous Albanian signs
compared to Italian or international ones, revealing a considerable degree
of linguistic awareness of the signs of their own language. With regard
to nonmanual signals, facial expressions were used for grammatical
functions such as negation and question formation.
The members of the working group also mostly agreed on the seman-
tics of the signs used. For instance, when we were discussing different
signs for “brother,” it turned out that the meaning of each sign varied.
In Figure 1, vëllai 1 means “brother,” “sister,” “same,” and “equal”
(the difference in meaning is expressed by the mouthing derived from
spoken Albanian accompanying the sign).7 In Figure 2 vëllai 2 means
“brother,” “sister,” “friend,” “cousin,” and “same,” and in Figure 3
vëllai 3 (an initialized sign8) means only “brother.”
The sign language I observed deaf Albanians using can be character-
ized in various ways. Full fingerspelling was not always required (some-
times only part of an Albanian word or sentence was fingerspelled). The
use of fingerspelling seemed to be systematized in some way; for exam-
ple, there were many lexicalized fingerspellings that were loans from
Albanian (i.e., originally fingerspelled words that had gone through a
lexicalization process and resulted in a sign with a reduced but fixed
form). By changing the orientation of the palm (toward or away from the
signer) and the direction of the hand movement (a motion from one lo-
cation in signing space to another), one could modify lexicalized finger-
spellings according to the subject and the object.9 My task was to give
training in lexicography, mainly on the practical methods of document-
ing and publishing part of a dictionary lexicon. Within the scope of our
assignment, we did not have sufficient resources to perform comprehen-
sive studies of various linguistic aspects of the language (e.g., phonology,
morphology, syntax).
There is no documentation of the communication based on finger-
spelling used by deaf people during the Communist regime and therefore
200 : karin hoyer

figure 1. vëllai 1: “brother,” “sister,” figure 2. vëllai 2:

“same” and “equal.” “brother,” “sister,” “friend,”
“cousin” and “same”
figure 3. vëllai 3: “brother”
no evaluation of the linguistic status of this manner of communicating. In

comparison with other signed languages, the biggest difference in this case
seems to be the lack of an extensive use of signs; instead, the vocabulary
is based on fingerspelling. However, AlbSL users are now developing an
extended sign vocabulary. Despite the efficiency of communication be-
tween Albanian deaf people and the observed linguistic patterns, AlbSL,
as used in the Albanian Deaf community in 2005, is still a developing lan-
guage.10 At all levels, idiolectal variation in AlbSL is more the rule than
the exception. This became quite obvious during our sign language work.
One of the aims of the dictionary publication (Hoyer and Çabej 2005)
was to demonstrate examples of this variation, which was evident when
we were videotaping signed example sentences for the dictionary. The
signers generally did not agree on how to sign a specific sentence; they all
had their own expression, and the other members of the group typically

accepted their preference. The language has not yet reached a level of
standardization in which all of the users can recognize a specific utterance
as AlbSL and nothing else and in which everyone agrees on the lexicon
and grammar.
Consequently, deaf people today use two varieties of communication;
AlbSL, which makes more frequent use of signs, has greater prestige.
Presently deaf people in Albania generally prefer to abandon finger-
spelling. Many whom I have met expressed the joy they experienced
upon learning new signs. The deaf research assistants were told the same
thing when they traveled around the provinces in 2005 while delivering
the dictionary to the Deaf community. They also reported that deaf peo-
ple who traveled abroad for work or studies after the collapse of
Communism have changed the way they communicate and that the fre-
quency of fingerspelling has decreased. Florjan Rojba has told me that,
when these people return to Albania on vacation, they use many signs
that have originated in the country to which they have moved (e.g.,
Greece, Italy, Germany, the United States).
Why is the Deaf community so eager to abandon the fingerspelling
tradition? Why does a method of communication based on signs have
greater prestige? There are no known studies that might illuminate the
reasons for this change; therefore, I can only refer to discussions with
Albanian deaf people and make general assumptions. Signing is said to
be easier and quicker than fingerspelling, and the message may be more
clearly transmitted through signs than fingerspelling. At the same time, I
also believe that the pride reflected by the new Deaf identity is the main
reason for abandoning fingerspelling. A comment made by Florjan Rojba
illustrates a commonly held belief: “We want to use signs like the Deaf
in all other countries.” It means that the extensive use of signs, as in
other signed languages deaf Albanians have come in contact with, is a
mark of membership in a transnational Deaf community. It symbolizes
the abandonment of the isolating Communist era and its oppression of
Albanian deaf people.
The active development and use of AlbSL can be tied to the associa-
tion of ANAD in the capital city of Tirana. The most typical user of
Albanian Sign Language today is a deaf male, aged twenty to forty, liv-
ing in Tirana, and frequently taking part in ANAD activities. The
younger generation of deaf people in Tirana is also starting to use AlbSL
when communicating with their hearing children, leading to a new gen-
eration of CODAs.
202 : karin hoyer

The most common profile of the deaf user of the traditional finger-
spelling is a middle-aged deaf woman with little or no contact with
ANAD and living isolated in a village in the Albanian countryside.
During the first-ever conference for deaf women in Albania, which took
place in October 2004, I noticed that not all of the deaf women in the
audience understood the presentations given in AlbSL. To accommodate
them, summaries of the talks were given in fingerspelling. In addition,
the need for interpreters who use only fingerspelling during the national
conferences arranged by ANAD has been discussed. Albanian deaf peo-
ple themselves are very aware of the divided communication situation.
Thus, during the last few years, deaf people have been coming together
more frequently, and the use of AlbSL has started to spread from Tirana
to the countryside.
During the past few years, the expansion of the vocabulary of AlbSL
has likely taken place because, although the traditional communication
based on fingerspelling was not just a manual code of spoken Albanian,
it was not a full-fledged language either. As I see it, the Communist era
reflects two important factors that affect the development of the lan-
guage. The restricted method of communication reflected the absence of
a community in which a signed language could flourish; at the same time,
the limited language use and the restricted world of concepts were also
the result of the harsh political and social climate in this extremely iso-
lated country.
Since the opening up of Albania, the language use of deaf people has
also become freer. The new era has created opportunities for deaf people
to interact more extensively. Washabaugh (1986) discusses the social cir-
cumstances that affect language acquisition and development. Through
studies of Providence Island Sign Language (PSL), he suggests that a
complete and mature sign language will not necessarily develop even if
deaf people interact with one another and children have access to sign
language input and are not prohibited from signing by their hearing par-
ents. Washabaugh claims that PSL has a more context-dependent lexicon
and syntax than full-fledged sign languages. He argues that something in
the social relationship between deaf and hearing persons impedes lan-
guage acquisition and inhibits the development of a mature sign language.
Deaf people experience paternalism and victimization at the hands of
the hearing community and are socially isolated within their hearing fam-
ilies. This results in an unbalanced power relationship and an attitude in
which deaf people prefer interaction with hearing people to contact with

other deaf people. On Providence Island, many deaf people are forced
to interact mostly with hearing people also for geographical reasons.
Interactions among deaf people are often characterized by miscommuni-
cations. They do not form their own communities either within or be-
tween villages. Deaf children are not raised to become culturally Deaf; in-
stead, they grow up to identify with hearing people and aspire to become
like them. Washabaugh maintains that appropriate social circumstances
are a prerequisite for full language acquisition and development. This will
not happen if the language users do not have an identity as members of a
community that defines itself as a group with a language of its own.
The plight of deaf Albanians during the Communist era is somewhat
similar to the situation Washabaugh describes. The strong family ties
during the hardships of that period led deaf people in Albania to rely on
interactions with their hearing families. However, with regard to educa-
tion and communication, the Albanian case is different from that of
Providence Island. In Albania, a school for deaf children has been in op-
eration since 1963; consequently, deaf children have lived together in an
organized way, and some of them have kept in touch after leaving school.
The fingerspelling used by the teachers was the model for communica-
tion among the deaf pupils. This was not the case on Providence Island,
where no school for deaf children existed. Instead, hearing people used
signs in communications with deaf people, therefore making some com-
munication possible. In Albania, hearing people did not sign, but the use
of gestures in Albanian culture (discussed later) ensured at least some
communication between hearing and deaf people. Since deaf people
are usually in the minority in any community, they are surrounded by a
hearing majority using spoken language. However, hearing people often
use gestures associated with their spoken utterances, and this fact likely
influences the form of an emerging sign language. Still, in the case of both
Providence Island and Albania, the common denominator that impedes
the development of a full-fledged sign language appears to be the lack of
a community. In Albania, the absence of a community can be ascribed to
the strict rules that limited interactions during the Communist regime.
The political change in Albania and the international contacts that have
arisen since the end of the 1990s have greatly contributed to the emer-
gence of a Deaf community. The latter have also influenced the form of
the language, especially the vocabulary, which has grown rapidly.
Nicaragua is another example. There, societal attitudes that led to the
isolation of deaf individuals were one factor that impeded the formation
204 : karin hoyer

of a Deaf community until the late 1970s (Senghas and Coppola 2001).
The genesis and rapid development of Nicaraguan Sign Language is well
documented and goes hand in hand with the development of the educa-
tional system for deaf children. Senghas and Coppola describe the sig-
nificant role the child learners played in the creation and development of
the spatial grammar of the language. Later cohorts of deaf children that
were exposed to a partly developed language systematized it. Limitations
on the input resulted in a new language developed by these later cohorts
of the child learners.
One of the consequences of the ending of Albania’s isolation was that
the country received international aid in different forms. Some of the as-
sistance was directed to the school for deaf children, and an attempt was
made to introduce sign language into deaf education. The publication
Libër me shenja [Book with Signs], containing 360 signs to be used at the
school, was published in 1996 with Dutch support. Libër me shenja,
however, was apparently not a success in the Albanian Deaf community.
One problem may have been that practically no deaf people were in-
volved in creating the book — a classic example of how language plan-
ning can go wrong. New words or signs can rarely be coined by out-
siders; they should instead emerge into a language through its users.
The adult Deaf community firmly rejected Libër me shenja. In 2002,
after the book was reviewed by three different groups of deaf people in
Tirana (on the initiative of ANAD), it was found to contain numerous in-
vented or foreign signs that had never been used in Albania. However, be-
cause some of the hearing teachers at the school were starting to use it,
some of the signs (which had not previously been in use in Albania) have
become a part of the AlbSL vocabulary of today’s younger generation.
Before the sign language work started, even the name of Albanian Sign
Language had no fixed form; it was alternatively referred to as “Gjuha
shenjave e shqip” [literally, “language sign of Albania] or “Gjuha shqip e
shenjave” [“language of Albanian sign”]. The two names were considered
equally acceptable even if the latter gives the incorrect impression that it
is a signed version of Albanian. Deaf people refer to the language simply
as “signing.” As a result of the increased linguistic knowledge made pos-
sible by the sign language work, the Albanian name in use today is Gjuha
shenjave e shqip.
The name of a language is an important statement of language policy,
as is evident in Berenz’s (2003, 180) description of the beginning of the use
of the term “língua de sinais” [sign language] for Brazilian Sign Language

instead of “mímica” [mimicry], which the language was called up to that

time. The choice of the name occurred at the same time a political decision
highlighted the equal linguistic status of spoken and signed languages.
CONTACT WITH INTERNATIONAL SIGN
In his discussion of the sociocultural setting of language contact,

Weinreich (1970) mentions language proficiency, specialization in the use
of each language, the manner of learning each language, and attitudes to-
ward the languages as factors at the individual level. At the community
level, the crucial issues are the size of the bilingual group, demography,
political and social relations, and prestige. In this section, I discuss lan-
guage proficiency and attitudes toward languages among Albanian deaf
individuals and the way in which issues such as prestige and social rela-
tions have affected the outcome of such contact in Albania. I also de-
scribe the circumstances and effects of contact with International Sign,
including signs borrowed for new concepts and changes in indigenous
signs. At the end of this section, I discuss a nonindigenous way of coin-
ing new signs and present the first impressions of two native Auslan users
of the communication among deaf Albanians in relation to International
Sign.
International Sign is used by deaf signers who do not share a com-
mon sign language. Socially, it functions somewhat as a pidgin language
in that it fosters communication between people who use different sign
languages. However, a study of the linguistic status of International Sign
by Supalla and Webb (1995) revealed that it has complex structures that
can be compared to those found in full-fledged sign languages. They
found systematic patterns of word order, markers of negation, and verb
agreement patterns that are more similar to those found in creoles and
in full sign languages than in spoken language pidgins. Supalla and
Webb contend that this complexity is due to a high degree of similarity
between the sign languages in contact. According to the authors, Inter-
national Sign’s circumstances of usage resemble those of a pidgin but is
more structurally complex than a typical pidgin. Rosenstock (2004)
notes that International Sign can more appropriately be defined by its
function than by its linguistic status since there are no native users of
International Sign. It can be seen as a communication system with the
purpose of conveying meaning, and it is used as a lingua franca in the
206 : karin hoyer

international Deaf community. Rosenstock adds, however, that the label

“lingua franca” depends greatly on its users’ comprehension of the sys-
tem. In the case of deaf Albanians, the almost complete absence of con-
tact with International Sign before the 1990s prevented its use as a tool
for mutual understanding between the deaf people of Albania and deaf
people elsewhere.
Currently, AlbSL demonstrates elements of contact with International
Sign, other sign languages, and Albanian. Due to their reliance on tradi-
tional fingerspelling, many Albanian deaf people know written Albanian
to some extent. Knowledge of other signed languages and International
Sign is still relatively limited since contacts abroad have been permitted
for only the past fifteen years. Most of these have occurred within
Albania when signing foreigners have visited the country or when deaf
Albanians have returned to their homeland while on vacation after mov-
ing abroad. Exceptions to this rule are those deaf people who have been
active in ANAD and have attended conferences or other events for deaf
people abroad. It is still possible to see contact-induced change in AlbSL
that can be traced to exposure to International Sign during the two-week
trip to Finland in 2000. Four of the five deaf persons attending this trip
later became members of either the ANAD staff or board and have there-
fore been key persons in the development of AlbSL. Additionally, televi-
sion, videotapes, and the Internet enable deaf Albanians to become fa-
miliar with other signed languages.
Even though AlbSL still relies heavily on fingerspelling for signs that
do not yet appear in the language, more and more signs have come into
the lexicon because of the extension of the world of concepts, which cre-
ates a need for new linguistic symbols. New signs are coined through
more frequent contact among the language users in the Albanian Deaf
community, and the language is starting to be used in various linguistic
domains. This is due to the natural evolution of a language, the need for
new signs, and contact-induced change.
Much of the influence of International Sign has taken place through
foreign signing advisors working within ANAD, although other sign lan-
guages also induce changes.11 From 2000 to 2005, four different
Australian advisors and I from time to time trained the staff and board
of ANAD on organization management, the documenting of signed lan-
guage, dictionary work, awareness of Deaf culture, and interpreter issues
and skills. This means that Albanian deaf persons with close contacts to
ANAD have been quite exposed to foreign influence and have therefore

likely been the most active sources of language change. It is too early to
estimate how established the neologisms have become in everyday lan-
guage use in the provinces outside ANAD contexts. However, it seems
that the tendency is for new signs to first spread throughout the capital
city of Tirana and only after that through contacts between individuals
or organizational events arranged by ANAD to the more distant deaf
population.
According to Winford (2003), the initiators of contact-induced change
may be fluent bilinguals who are highly proficient in both languages and
engage in frequent code mixing. What has triggered the contact-induced
change in AlbSL is, however, not a situation with widespread bilingual-
ism among the language users. Rather, the borrowing of signs from
International Sign by monolingual deaf people (with linguistic profi-
ciency in only one signed language) has been motivated by a clear need.
New areas of knowledge (e.g., organizational development) have led to
a need for linguistic symbols for these novel concepts. Also, existing gaps
in the lexicon have been filled through borrowing. This lexical modern-
ization is similar to what Reagan (2001) maintains has been taking place
in Russia. The social, economic, and political changes that occurred after
the collapse of the former Soviet Union resulted in widespread lexical
borrowings and innovations in Russian. In AlbSL, lexical borrowing is
quite visible, whereas the problem of estimating the extent of structural
borrowing has to do with the fact that the grammatical features of AlbSL
have not been studied; to some extent, they may also be in a develop-
mental stage.
Signs Borrowed for New Concepts
Since we know the sociolinguistic context and background of the lan-

guage and its users, we are able to analyze the nature of the contact-
induced change and examine its linguistic consequences. According to
Winford (2003), borrowed items are manipulated so that they conform
to the rules of the recipient language. New lexical entries may be created,
and existing ones may be modified.
When starting the leadership training program of the Organizational
Support Project in 2000, Colin Allen, a native deaf Auslan user, found
that deaf Albanians were unable to understand him when he used
International Sign. He was also not able to understand them when their
communication was based on fingerspelling. To convey his message, he
used a method that can be described as “acting out the message” — using
208 : karin hoyer

pantomime and facial expressions. Many of the signs he used are com-
monly used in International Sign (Colin Allen, pers. comm., February 6,
2005; March 13, 2006).
In her study on International Sign, Rosenstock (2004) discusses the
conventionalized International Sign vocabulary and suggests that the
limited number of conventionalized signs is partly due to the fact that
International Sign is used in only a few domains. Many of the signs are
used in interpreted International Sign at conference settings and are
within the field of deafness-related topics.
Signs have been borrowed into AlbSL from International Sign as a re-
sult of the leadership training and the visit to Finland in 2000. Many of
the borrowed signs belong to a special-purpose vocabulary and are not
part of the core lexicon. Examples are bordit (“board”), president
(“president”), qeveria (“government”), buxhet (“budget”), program
(“program”), avokat (“lobby, advocate”), ndihmon (“support, help”),
vit (“year”), moshë (“age”), parlament (“parliament”), vendos (“ap-
prove, decide”), problem (“problem”), and anglisht (“English lan-
guage”).12 The corresponding signs president, government, budget,
program, and parliament in International Sign are shown in the ap-
pendix, signed by Liisa Kauppinen, president emerita of the World
Federation of the Deaf.13
It is too early to describe the possible phonological adaptations of the
signs because of both the recency of the borrowing and the dearth of
phonological descriptions of AlbSL before contact. The citation forms of
the signs mentioned are mainly the same as those of the corresponding
ones in International Sign. The only exception is qeveria (“govern-
ment”); the AlbSL sign is articulated with a short repeated movement to-
ward the forehead instead of the simple straight movement away from
the forehead (as in the same sign in International Sign).
When it comes to morphosyntax, however, there is an interesting ex-
ample of modification with regard to numeral incorporation. In AlbSL
the numbers one through five can be incorporated into vit (“year”).
Rosenstock (2004) found that numeral incorporation is almost absent in
her data on International Sign. She claims that “numeral incorporation
is largely based on economic considerations. Bound morphemes only de-
velop over time and in situations where conventional symbols can re-
place iconic ones. Since IS is a system with no native users and lacks the
historic context, it seems logical that no numeral incorporation exists”
(ibid., 83).

The vocabulary of International Sign consists partly of loans from

natural sign languages, and some of the signs are shared among many
different sign languages (see Rosenstock 2004 for examples and a dis-
cussion of the origin of signs in International Sign). Of the thirteen signs
in AlbSL borrowed from International Sign (mentioned earlier), three
of them — buxhet (“budget”), program (“program”), and moshë
(“age”) — are also found in Finnish Sign Language. This adds further
evidence to the claim that most of the signs’ origins may be in
International Sign since it was used during the trip to Finland in 2000,
when the group of five deaf Albanians were exposed to International
Sign for the first time.
Before that visit, there were no signs for these concepts; the only ex-
ception is the indigenous sign meaning “problem.” The concepts were
mainly expressed by fingerspelling the Albanian word or by a combina-
tion of a paraphrase (such as “director high/first” for “president”) and
fingerspelling. Some of the concepts, such as board, budget, and
lobby/advocate, were not a part of the vocabulary of deaf people during
the Communist regime. Florjan Rojba reports that many concepts still
lack signs and are expressed by fingerspelling the corresponding
Albanian word (e.g., “use,” “need,” “social,” “service,” “private,”
“original,” “bank,” and “guarantee”). Furthermore, AlbSL does not
have signs for certain time units (e.g., days of the week or months).
Instead, they are fingerspelled (sometimes only partly) and accompanied
with mouth movements derived from the corresponding Albanian word.
Contact-Induced Changes in Indigenous Signs
Indigenous signs have either given way to foreign ones or undergone

changes in their structure or meanings. The native sign mësoj (“to
teach”) is more frequently used with the Ô handshape (as in the corre-
...
sponding sign in International Sign) than with the original 5 handshape
(Figure 4).
A homonym of rri, which originally meant “to wait,” has appeared
in AlbSL due to contact with International Sign and happens to be iden-
tical in form to work in International Sign. Today it seems as though the
sign is more frequently used to mean “to work.” This type of meaning
shift may be motivated by prestige since AlbSL already had a native
counterpart for “to work” (see Figure 5).
Colin Allen suggests that foreign signs may have more prestige (lead-
ing to the abandonment of the native signs) because many of the latter
210 : karin hoyer

figure 4. mësoj “to teach”
figure 5. punoj “to work”
are also used as gestures in the surrounding hearing community (e.g., “to
work” in Figure 5; pers. comm., February 6, 2005; March 13, 2006). In
beginning to identify themselves with the international Deaf community,
Albanian deaf people might abandon a “hearing” gesture in favor of a
Deaf sign. They might prefer to have signs in common with other sign
languages instead of sharing their signs with the Albanian hearing com-
munity.
The signs for deaf or deaf person also show the prestige factor as-
sociated with foreign influence. In Albanian, the words shurdhër (“deaf
person”) and memec (“mute,” “deaf-mute”) are both considered pejora-
tive by deaf people; instead, the expression nuk degjon (“do not hear”)
is used.14 The name of the Albanian National Association of the Deaf is
Shoqata Kombëtare Shqiptare e Njerëzve që nuk Dëgjojnë (Association
of National Albanian People Who Do Not Hear).

Albanian Sign Language has many variants of deaf. The indigenous

ones are the following:
1. The index finger moves into contact with the mouth/chin jo

(“no”) (the sign is articulated with a mouth movement originating
in nuk flet [“do not speak”]).
2. The index finger moves into contact with the ear/cheek jo (with
a mouth movement originating in nuk degjon).
3. The index finger moves from contact with ear/cheek to contact
with mouth/chin jo (with a mouth movement originating in
nuk flet or nuk degjon).
The third variant of deaf is favored in AlbSL within ANAD settings,

although it seems as though this sign is becoming shorter in form, losing
its second part (jo) and acquiring a mouth movement more like [df] orig-
inating in the English word “deaf.” The result is a sign that resembles
deaf in both International Sign and FinSL (the index finger first touches
the ear/cheek and then the mouth/chin). This is therefore a case in which
the foreign influence is seen to favor a sign that resembles one from
International Sign. In addition, the influence of English is evident in the
mouth movement. In her study of International Sign, Rosenstock (2004)
found that some very common signs were frequently accompanied by
mouth movements derived from English. Interestingly, deaf was one of
these.
A Foreign Way of Coining New Signs
The sign language work has included training for deaf people in Deaf
studies and raising awareness of one’s language and culture. As a result,
some deaf people have now begun to object to the tendency to copy for-
eign linguistic features when a domestic counterpart already exists.
There have been extensive ideological discussions about linguistic issues
such as the abandonment of indigenous signs in favor of international
ones and how to respect the AlbSL manner of coining new signs. The
shorter sign for deaf or deaf person with the mouth movement [df]
(mentioned in the third variant shown earlier) is one example of a sign
that has been the target of such discussions within the Deaf community.
One of the most visible consequences of the 1996 book Libër me
shenja is that deaf people began creating numerous initialized signs.
Those that the book presented (e.g., kinship signs for “mother,” “father,”
“sister,” “brother,” “grandmother,” “grandfather,” “nephew,” “niece,”
212 : karin hoyer

“uncle” [mother’s brother], “aunt” [mother’s sister], “uncle” [father’s

brother], “aunt” [father’s sister]) reflected a foreign manner of creating
neologisms through initializing. Before the collapse of Communism in
1990 and the subsequent opening up of the country, there existed both in-
digenous initialized signs and lexicalized fingerspelled signs. Of 1,240
signs that have been taken from spontaneous video data during the sign
language work that began in 2003, 13 have been noted as being indige-
nous initialized or lexicalized fingerspelled signs. In addition to these,
Florjan Rojba mentioned at least 16 more signs of this kind in common
use. The place of articulation for the 29 signs that include fingerspelling
is restricted to the signing space in front of the signer, which is the general
place of articulation for initialized or lexicalized fingerspelled signs in
AlbSL.15
Incorporating the first letter of the corresponding Albanian word as
the handshape of the sign and combining it with a specific place of ar-
ticulation other than that in front of the signer is, however, nonindige-
nous and new to AlbSL. Of the twelve initialized one-handed kinship
signs mentioned earlier from Libër me shenja, four are articulated on the
face and eight on the body. Even if only a few new signs from the book
become established in AlbSL (the first four of the twelve kinship signs
mentioned are in use today), the book seems to have influenced a new
nonindigenous method of coining signs.
The initialized signs for the names of Albanian cities illustrate this
new process. According to Eduard Ajazi and Colin Allen, before the year
2000, Tirana and Korçë were the only cities that had a sign, both of
which were created in an indigenous manner, with handshape and move-
ment parameters combined in the neutral space in front of the signer. The
city of Fier may have had a sign articulated on the top of the head with
a 5 handshape, which was later changed to an F handshape. The signs
for the cities of Elbasan and Gjirokastër are also the result of this non-
indigenous manner of creating neologisms. Their signs are articulated on
the top of the nondominant fist with the handshape of the Albanian let-
ters E and Gj respectively. In addition, influence from a foreign hand-
alphabet is evident in the sign for the city of Durrës, which is based on
the letter D in the two-handed alphabet used in Auslan. All of these ini-
tialized signs were created before the linguistic awareness training took
place. On the other hand, new signs for cities (e.g., Lezhë, which was cre-
ated after the training started) do not include initialization. This awak-
ening loyalty to AlbSL within the Albanian Deaf community may well

encourage resistance to future influence from abroad with regard to the

coining of new signs.
As mentioned earlier, Colin Allen has reported that, in the year
2000, he could not make himself understood while using International
Sign with deaf Albanians. Susan Emerson’s first impression of com-
munication with deaf Albanians six years later was totally different.
Like Allen, Emerson is a native Auslan user and has experience with
International Sign through her work as an interpreter. She compared her
first impression of two different Balkan sign languages: AlbSL and the
sign language used in Kosovo, an area of former Yugoslavia. Emerson
found that AlbSL was easier for her to comprehend than the sign lan-
guage used in Kosovo. Her immediate impression of AlbSL was that it
resembled International Sign (Susan Emerson, pers. comm., February 16,
2006). This observation reveals two important issues. First, her descrip-
tion of AlbSL differs substantially from that of Colin Allen six years
earlier. These two Auslan users met with the same deaf individuals. This
difference indicates that, in the six-year interim, the language of those who
were actively participating in ANAD activities had apparently changed
drastically.
The second issue has to do with a plausible reason that a signing for-
eigner with skills in International Sign finds AlbSL to be more intelligi-
ble than the sign language used in Kosovo. The latter is a close variant
of the sign language used in other former Yugoslavian areas (e.g., Serbia,
Montenegro, FYR Macedonia) and is presumably older than AlbSL. The
oldest school for deaf students in the Balkans, Stefan Decanski School in
Belgrade, was founded as a primary school in 1896, and the Association
of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing of Serbia was established in 1944
(Allen and Walters 2005). Over time, a full-fledged natural sign language
developed, much like the one used in Kosovo, which is more arbitrary in
form and more abstract compared to a younger sign language. The struc-
tures of a full-fledged sign language are often more nontransparent than
the corresponding ones in the much younger AlbSL, which demonstrates
influence from International Sign. Rosenstock (2004) discusses the dif-
ferent levels of the iconic structures of International Sign. One of her hy-
potheses with regard to the comprehension of a foreign natural sign lan-
guage compared with interpreted and noninterpreted International Sign
is that “a fully developed natural SL like ASL has many structures that
are arbitrary and highly abstract. These are presumably harder to un-
derstand than the more iconic structures in either form of IS” (247).
214 : karin hoyer

In AlbSL, borrowing from International Sign has only recently begun,

and it is therefore difficult to know at this stage which signs will become
an established part of the language (integrated borrowing) and which
will remain temporary code switching or code mixing. Furthermore, in a
contact situation, lexical borrowing may vary from casual to heavy and
may sometimes result in bilingual mixed languages (see Thomason
1995). Today, AlbSL is borrowing extensively; as a result, its vocabulary
is expanding suddenly and rapidly. Its deaf users see their sign language
as a symbol of an awakening Deaf identity. Despite this, AlbSL is not a
bilingual mixed language (which is created by bilinguals), because a
widespread bilingualism (i.e., proficiency in two signed languages) can-
not be said to be prevailing within the Albanian Deaf community.
CONTACT BETWEEN HEARING AND DEAF PEOPLE:

GESTURES VERSUS SIGNS
In this section, I discuss gestural behavior with a focus on conven-

tionalized gesture use in the Albanian hearing community. I present my
initial study on Albanian emblematic gestures that have a sign counter-
part in AlbSL. At the end of this section a discussion follows on the
relationship between idioms in spoken Albanian and emblematic ges-
tures and signs.
Gestures can be used differently in various countries and cultures. For
example, in Western countries a headshake is interpreted as a “no,” but
Albanians traditionally shake their head for “yes.” By comparing the
gestures used by two groups of immigrants to the United States (Jews
from Eastern Europe and Italians from the south of Italy) and the as-
similated first-generation offspring of these immigrants, Efron (1972)
showed that the usage is related to one’s cultural tradition. Morris et al.
(1979) conducted a field study in European countries to map the geo-
graphical distribution of gestural practice. They found that many ges-
tures have several different meanings and that they were used across
both national and linguistic boundaries. That study demonstrates that
Europe has regions of culturally specific gestural usage.
Definitions of Gestural Behavior
The terminology for communicative gestural behavior is somewhat di-

verse. Attempts have been made to define and classify gestural behavior

according to its meaning, form, or function.16 Nevertheless, Kendon

(2004) maintains that a consensus exists on a core of visible body expres-
sions that are usually referred to as gestures. Gesture is visible action that
can function either as part of an utterance or as an utterance in its entirety.
As he suggests, “gestures produced in relation to speech are an integral
component of the communicative act of the speaker. Regardless of whether
and how they contribute to the interpretation of the communicative act by
others, they must be seen as part of the speaker’s final product, and not as
symptoms of some struggle to attain verbal expression” (359).
The lexicographic approach of Johnston and Schembri (1999) defines
gesture in contrast to sign language. They distinguish between nonlin-
guistic visual-gestural acts (e.g., gesticulation, gesture, and mime by non-
signers) and linguistic visual-gestural acts (e.g., signs). Sutton-Spence and
Woll (1999) make a distinction between extralinguistic gestures and
signs according to the following criteria: Signs are part of a sign language
when they do not replace or add to any other sign. They are also part of
a sign language when they obey morphological rules. Gestures can be
borrowed into a sign language and become signs (i.e., part of the lan-
guage). They cannot constitute grammatical sentences as signs do.
Conventional gestures or emblems (or emblematic gestures) differ
from general gesticulation in many respects. McNeill (1992) describes
emblems as wordlike gestures that are standardized in form and mean-
ing, which they convey even when they are produced without speech.
They are culture specific and have a historical tradition within the com-
munity. Emblems are not necessarily pantomimic or descriptive, and if
there are iconic features, they are traces from the past and unimportant
for the current function of the emblem. Goldin-Meadow (2003) gives as
examples the gestures for “thumbs up,” “okay,” and “shush,” which can
be understood within a community without context or explanation.
Emblematic gestures are not necessarily transparent to those outside the
community. This means that, like signs, they do not seem to depend on
iconicity. Goldin-Meadow contends that gestures (except emblematic
ones) used in association with speech are heavily dependent on iconicity
to convey meaning.
Other authors have also written about gesture use vis-à-vis signed lan-
guage. Zeshan (2003) discusses the conventional gestures that hearing
people use in relation to signed languages. She asserts that they often
move into the lexicon of conventional sign languages. Moreover, Sutton-
Spence and Woll (1999) recognize that some signs in British Sign
216 : karin hoyer

Language (BSL) were most likely emblematic gestures at one time. In ad-
dition, both BSL users and English speakers use emblematic gestures that
are a part of the British culture of today.
Gesture Use in the Albanian Hearing Community
In Albania, as in southern Europe in general, hearing people use their

body to communicate and interact with each other in a complex and so-
phisticated way. Compared to the extensive use of gestures in southern
Europe, Nordic people do not use gestures that often.17 In their compar-
ison, Morris et al. (1979) found that in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway,
only 60 to 80 percent of the twenty conventional gestures studied were
used, compared to Italy and Greece, where all twenty were in use. Even
though Finland and Albania were not included in the study, the results
support the view of a difference between northern and southern Europe
in the degree of gestural use.
My first contact with Albanian gestures occurred when I arrived at the
airport at Tirana. As a foreigner, I was immediately spotted and sur-
rounded by begging children who pulled at my coat sleeves. The children
spoke to me in Albanian, a language that I did not know at that time, and
they used gestures I also could not interpret. One of the children used a
wiggling gesture with a flat hand moving repeatedly up and down in
front of his face. Later I learned that this is a conventional Albanian ges-
ture meaning “to eat” or “food.” A sign identical to it also exists in AlbSL
(see Figure 6).18
Some of the gestures I observed hearing Albanians using were similar
to those used in the cultural contexts of northern Europe and Finland.
figure 6. ha “to eat,” “food”

They included gestures that depicted some of the content of what was
said (e.g., specifying the size or the shape of an object or illustrating an
action of some kind). Furthermore, the Albanians use pointing to visible
or nonvisible referents and different kinds of gestures to structure their
discourse (e.g., gestures linked to emphasis, which are often referred to
as “beats/batons”; see McNeill 1992). My main interest, however, was
the vocabulary of conventional gestures (i.e., emblems) used in the
Albanian hearing society that were not transparent enough for me to
guess the meaning from the context. This interest was due to the fact that
I had started to learn AlbSL through interactions with deaf people, and
I noticed that many of the conventional gestures used by hearing people
were also signs in AlbSL. It seems that the AlbSL signs that resemble con-
ventional gestures have their origins in the exposure deaf people have
had to these gestures in the hearing community.
Albanian Conventional Gestures versus Signs in AlbSL:

Preliminary Data
objectives and methods

As a consequence of my observations of the similarity between em-
blematic gestures used in the hearing community and signs in AlbSL, I
elicited and analyzed some data in order to examine the possible rela-
tionship between certain gestures used by hearing Albanians and signs
used by deaf Albanians. My objective was to investigate possible differ-
ences between these emblems in form, meaning, and use. I had made ob-
servations and kept notes about hearing people’s use of emblematic ges-
tures since my first arrival in Albania. By the end of 2005, I had visited
the country nine times (in periods of four to eight weeks). The data are
based on my observations and on several discussions about emblems
with both deaf and hearing Albanians.
In addition, I collected data during interviews with two hearing in-
formants who were unfamiliar with AlbSL. The informants were asked
to list all of the gestures conveying meaning that they could think of in
use among hearing people in Albania. In order to obtain complete infor-
mation about emblematic gestures, I asked additional questions about
gestures for a specific Albanian word. I also queried the informants
about the use and the form of the gestures they produced. The form,
meaning, and use of twenty emblematic gestures were compared to the
corresponding sign and were discussed and analyzed together with the
deaf research assistants involved in the sign language work.
218 : karin hoyer

analysis and results

Some of the gestures in the interview data were also in use in the
Nordic cultural context (e.g., the index finger to the lips for “be quiet”
and the shrugging of one’s shoulders for “I don’t know”).19 However, the
focus of the data analysis was culture-specific, nontransparent emblem-
atic gestures, so all iconic gestures imitating an action were excluded.
The emblematic gestures that were analyzed are presented in Table 1.
Some of the observations and a few examples are presented here. The re-
sults seem to indicate that all of the emblematic gestures presented in
Table 1 are in use by the Albanian hearing community and correspond
to a sign with a similar form in AlbSL. Some of the gestures showed no
difference from the corresponding sign (e.g., see Figure 7, mirë
[“good”], where the orientation of the palm can vary in both the gesture
and the sign).
This does not necessarily mean that no difference whatsoever exists.
Further studies are needed to analyze possible differences in meaning and
table 1. Twenty emblematic gestures in Albania with a similar counterpart in

AlbSL
Lexical Counterpart of the Gesture English Translation
budalla “foolish,” “crazy”

bukur “beautiful”
burg “prison,” “be imprisoned”
faleminderit “thank you”
fëmijë “child”
ha “to eat,” “food”
nuk-flet “not on speaking terms”
keq “bad”
kokëbosh “empty headed,” “incompetent”
kokëfortë “hard headed,” “obstinate”
mendjemadh “arrogant,” “conceited”
mërzitur “worried”
mirë “good,” “fine,” “well”
poshtër “vile,” “base,” “low,” “indecent”
punoj “to work”
rrah “to beat”
shkoj “to go”
turp “shame”
uri “hunger,” “to be hungry”
vonë “to be late”

figure 7. mirë “good,” “nice”
use. For example, faleminderit can mean “thank you,” “please,” and
“excuse me”; this is not necessarily the case, however, for the corre-
sponding gesture, where “thank you” seems to be the most common
meaning. The gesture ha (“to eat,” “food”) in Figure 6 is articulated
with a repeated movement, while observed patterns for this sign in
AlbSL appear generally to indicate a reduction in the number of repeti-
tions within a sentence. The sign bukur (“beautiful”) can be applied to
anything beautiful, whereas the most common use of the gesture is to
refer to beautiful women.
It is too early to make blanket statements about the differences be-
tween the emblematic gestures and their corresponding signs. Since
AlbSL is still under development, a wide range of variation is tolerated.
The situation clearly needs to be examined again in the near future to de-
termine how the process is unfolding. However, in some cases, differ-
ences are already clearly visible. Even if emblematic gestures are gener-
ally restricted in form, they become even more so when borrowed into a
sign language and become units in a linguistic system. Zeshan (2003,
132–39) discusses the formational aspect in the lexicalization process.
With increasing lexicalization, variation in the form is eliminated, and
the form becomes more fixed. In the case of mendjemadh (“arrogant,”
“conceited”), the handshapes of the gesture may be a B handshape with
thumb extended, a Y handshape, an L handshape, an X handshape, or a
G handshape. In addition, the G handshape may be oriented either ver-
tically or horizontally, while in the latter case, the orientation of the palm
can be either upward or downward. For the corresponding sign (see
220 : karin hoyer

figure 8. mendjemadh “arrogant,” “conceited”
figure 9. kokëbosh “empty-headed,”

“incompetent”
Figure 8), a smaller set of handshapes is accepted; only the L and Y hand-
shapes are allowed.
Reduction in form also applies to kokëbosh (“empty headed,” “in-
competent”). The place of articulation is more flexible for the gesture than
for the sign. According to the deaf informants, the most common place of
articulation (among hearing people) for this gesture is on one’s own head.
If two speakers are both socially and physically close, the gesture may be
jokingly articulated on the other person’s head. The gesture can also be ar-
ticulated toward a tabletop or against the palm of the nondominant hand.
The deaf informants reported that, for this sign (see Figure 9), the younger
deaf generation most commonly uses the palm of the nondominant hand
as the place of articulation. This means that, in the borrowing process,
more signlike features win, the result being a two-handed sign with the
nondominant hand taking on the role of the tabletop.

figure 10. rrah “to beat”
figure 11. nuk-flet “not on

speaking terms.” There exist
also an alternative form that is
one-handed and the starting
point for the movement is at
the mouth rather than the
pinky of the nondominant
hand.
In the case of rrah (“to beat”), the transition from an emblematic

gesture to a sign is most clearly seen in the morphosyntactic pattern. The
gesture cannot be modified according to subject or object, but the verbal
sign may be directionally inflected and is signed with a different orienta-
tion of the hand and with a movement toward the signer to mean “you
beat me” (the citation form is shown in Figure 10).
nuk-flet (“not on speaking terms”) is an example of a difference in
use between the gesture and the sign. They both have the same variation
in form, but the gesture appears to be used primarily by children. The
sign, however, is used by adults as well (see Figure 11).
Some of the processes (e.g., simplification, symmetricalization) are
similar to ones that take place when complex visual depictions change
into signs in a signed language.20
Due to the absence of a Deaf community during the Communist era in
Albania, deaf people socialized with hearing people to a great extent, and
communication was thus significantly influenced by the gestures they used.
Deaf people who had attended the deaf school communicated mainly
through fingerspelling and with the use of only a few signs. The claim that
222 : karin hoyer

many of these signs seem to be those originating in the emblematic gestures

used in the surrounding hearing community is supported by this initial
study. Washabaugh (1986, 85–87) reports that the deaf residents of
Providence Island also use emblems. Those used by hearing people were
important for the deaf residents when they were trying to make sense of
the spoken communication in the surrounding community. Washabaugh
found that all of the emblems used by the hearing people had become signs
used by deaf residents.
Researchers have recently been addressing the relationship between
gestures and the structures used in sign languages. For example, Casey
(2003) suggests that role shift and directionality in signed languages have
a gestural origin. Because of the visual modality of sign language, it is not
always easy to distinguish the linguistic from the nonlinguistic elements.
This holds true especially for the present situation in Albania, where a
transition from gesture to sign is under way.
The question of the distinction between signers’ use of signs versus ges-
ture is also interesting. Sutton-Spence and Woll (1999, 167) suggest that,
“In the broadest sense, just as words are ‘audible gestures,’ signs are vis-
ible gestures with conventional form and meaning and which obey spe-
cific formational rules. Just as speakers may make sounds outside spoken
language, some pantomimic signing may move signs out of signing space,
so it is hard to know where to draw the line between signs and gestures.”
In the discussion about whether signers use gestures when they sign,
Duncan (2003) describes three possible ways in which gestures might
occur in a signed utterance: Gestures and signs may be coproduced, ges-
tures may be interspersed with signs, and gestures may be produced by
articulators other than those used to articulate signs.
Signs are units that belong to an agreed-upon lexicon in a codified lin-
guistic system that includes a specific grammar, whereas emblematic ges-
tures generally are not. In his study on contact between Mexican Sign
Language and American Sign Language, Quinto-Pozos (2002) notes that
the data revealed several emblems that were used by hearing people in
both Mexico and the United States. Some of them were included in sign
language dictionaries, where they were listed as signs. He discusses the
need to examine the linguistic characteristics of commonly used gestures
within a sign stream in order to define their lexical status.
In a similar way, the emblem-sign comparison discussed here raises
several questions about the lexical status and pragmatic aspects of the
emblems and the corresponding signs that future research might address.

Some of these issues are the following: How are Albanian deaf people
using the emblematic gestures in communication with hearing people?
Does their usage vary according to whether they are a part of basic ges-
tural communication with hearing people or function as units of a lin-
guistic system? Do the gestures become signs as soon as one deaf person
addresses another deaf person, even if the second person has until then
been relying on gesturing and just recently started to learn AlbSL? When
does a hearing person who is learning to sign stop using the emblematic
gesture and start using it as a sign? And how about foreigners, second
language users who use them with both hearing and deaf people — are
they signing or gesturing?
relationship between emblems and

idioms in spoken language
The lack of a written tradition for the use of both gesture and sign lan-
guage makes etymology and the change in form and meaning of both
gestures and signs difficult to study. What can be said about the origin of
the conventional gestures that end up becoming transformed into signs?
Two of the emblematic gestures from the emblem-sign study reveal
something about the contact between gesture and speech. The form of
the emblematic gestures and AlbSL signs mërzitur (“worried”) and
fëmijë (“child”) seems to have originated in Albanian idioms (see
Figures 12 and 13).
The former gesture, mërzitur, is no longer known by everybody in
the younger generation, and it is reported to be used more among elderly
people. It can also be articulated slightly in front of the face, without
contact with the nose. In AlbSL the sign can be expressed either with a
head nod, stopping when the nose comes into contact with the 5 hand-
shape (with no movement of the hand), or with a short, repeated,
straight movement of the hand to the nose. The latter gesture, fëmijë,
may be articulated either with two hands on top of each other (as in the
figure) or with one hand. The same holds for the sign.
Idiomatic expressions may be borrowed from one language and in-
corporated into another. Sutton-Spence and Woll (1999, 186) discuss id-
ioms borrowed from English and integrated into BSL. Can idioms be
transformed into gestures as well? These two conventional gestures indi-
cate that this may be possible (unless, of course, the gesture preceded the
idiom). Both mërzitur and fëmijë are articulated with a 5 handshape.
The Albanian word meaning “palm” is pëllëmbë, which also means a
224 : karin hoyer

figure 12. mërzitur “worried.” The hand does

not move.
figure 13. fëmijë “child.” The hands do not

move.
measure equaling the size of a palm (i.e., a span of about six inches). The
word can also be used in a figurative sense to mean “small amount or
number” or “handful.” The hand measure of pëllëmbë (the measure
from the thumb to the pinky when all of the fingers are extended) was
used especially by the older generation for measuring fabric and clothes.
Thus the handshape of the gesture (5 handshape) directly reflects the
function and meaning of the Albanian word pëllëmbë.
The Albanian idioms turi varur (literally, “face hanging”), vari hundet
(literally, “hanging nose”), me buzët varur (literally, “with lips hang-
ing”), and i vari hundët (buzët) një pëllëmbë (literally, “the hanging of
nose (lips) by one span”) all mean “be worried.” (The last one means
“being very worried.”) The gesture mërzitur (the hanging of the nose
by one span) can therefore be considered as a visual reflection of this
Albanian idiom.
Another Albanian idiom containing the word pëllëmbë is nje (dy) pël-
lëmbë njeri (“one [two] span boy”), meaning “little guy,” is often used
to mean “he is only two hands high, but he is already behaving like a

man.” As in the case of mërzitur, the gesture fëmijë (the one [two]
span height of a boy) can be seen as visualizing an idiomatic expression.
These examples reflect contact between spoken language, gesture, and
signed language.
SUMMARY
The language of Albanian deaf people is characterized in large part by

language contact. (A summary of the sources and examples of the out-
come of contact is presented in Table 2.) Because language contact for
signed languages means that people who use one sign language come in
contact with people who use another language (or another system with
linguistic features), a social aspect of power hierarchy is always involved.
One cannot overemphasize equality between languages: No natural lan-
guage is “better” than any other language per se. However, when work-
ing with deaf people and sign language in a developing country, there is
a serious risk that the power hierarchy between the donor country and
the target country will be reflected in the language. The World
Federation of the Deaf has published a policy paper titled “WFD Work
in Developing Countries.” Section 3 in the policy paper emphasizes the
importance of respecting the indigenous sign languages (emphasis mine):
B. The co-operation should as much as possible be based on the prin-

ciple of mutual respect for cultural, language and social economic re-
alities, e.g. in sign language work. The objective should not be to ex-
port the sign language of the developed countries, but for developing
countries to research and/or develop their own sign languages based
on cultural realities.
C. Deaf people from developing countries should be encouraged to re-

ceive training in specific areas (e.g. sign language and management) in
developed countries. However, the training should be tailored to en-
able them to work with the languages in their own countries.
In the early days of developmental work among Deaf communities,

the sign language of the donor country was sometimes exported to the
recipient country. This issue of language influence has also been on the
agenda during the work with deaf people in Albania. Even though most
of the borrowing from International Sign has occurred out of a need for
226 : karin hoyer

table 2. Summary of source and outcome of contact in the language use

among deaf people in Albania
Source of Contact Examples of Outcome of Contact
Before 1990
Gestures in use in the Albanian Emblematic gestures became signs
hearing society
Fingerspelling words from the Lexicalized fingerspellings and
Albanian language initialized signs
After 1990
International Sign (from deaf Signs borrowed into AlbSL for concepts
Albanians visiting Finland in that previously lacked signs. New
2000 and foreign advisors signs were also coined parallel to
visiting Albania) indigenous signs that existed earlier.
Libër me Shenja [Book with Nonindigenous ways of coining
Signs] initialized signs
Other sign languages (from signing A sign for a city based on the two-
foreigners visiting the country handed alphabet used in Auslan;
and Albanian deaf people who the use of foreign signs by deaf
went abroad after the collapse individuals who return to visit
of Communism) Albania after moving abroad
signs (for concepts that previously had no signs), the foreign signs are oc-
casionally favored at the expense of existing indigenous ones (e.g., deaf
and work, as discussed earlier). I recommend that signers who work
with deaf people in other countries be especially conscious of the lan-
guage that they use. I am referring to imbalances of power between lan-
guages and to issues of language prestige, such as in the case of the un-
balanced power hierarchy between AlbSL and foreign sign languages or
International Sign, both of which have more prestige.
Since the trend among deaf people in Albania today seems to be to
abandon the fingerspelling tradition in favor of AlbSL, many former iso-
lated deaf people are now learning new signs.21 From my point of view,
the training that is given in linguistic awareness and language policy, for
instance, is a crucial part of sign language work, and the growing level
of linguistic awareness within the community is one of the successes of
the sign language work that has been done in Albania. With linguistic
awareness training, the risk that a nonlocal sign language will dominate
at the expense of the local one can be decreased. When working with deaf
people’s language, one should emphasize equality between languages and

lobby for a preservation of the local sign language based on its own cul-
tural realities.
CONCLUSIONS
This first account of AlbSL provides a glimpse into the situation pre-
vailing in the Albanian Deaf community, whose language use is charac-
terized by language contact. During the Communist regime, deaf people
were exposed to the gestures that hearing people were using. Many of
the signs now in use originated in the emblematic gestures of the hearing
society. Communication between deaf people was nevertheless domi-
nated by fingerspelling based on Albanian, and, as a consequence, lexi-
calized fingerspellings and initialized signs emerged. For political and so-
cietal reasons, a Deaf community and a fully fledged sign language did
not develop. When Communist rule came to an end, deaf Albanians
began coming in contact with one another, and a community has since
come into existence.
The results of contact with International Sign are seen both in the ex-
tension of the vocabulary of Albanian Sign Language and in the common
tendency to favor new signs at the expense of the traditional finger-
spelling. This transition, which can be considered an indication of the
Albanian deaf people’s wish to become part of a transnational Deaf
community, reflects the awakening of a new Deaf identity. I hope that
this linguistic minority will utilize AlbSL as a tool to advocate for their
human and linguistic rights. The newly acquired knowledge that AlbSL
is an indigenous natural language (even though it still is in a develop-
mental phase) should directly benefit the deaf people of Albania by help-
ing them to improve the status of the language through legislation and
enhance equality between deaf and hearing people.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank David Quinto-Pozos and Jan-Ola Östman for

their comments and discussions during the writing of this chapter, as well
as Florjan Rojba and Leena Savolainen for their support and effort in
producing the sketches and pictures. I also wish to thank the Albanian
people, both deaf and hearing, with whom I have had the honor to work:
228 : karin hoyer

I am grateful for the hospitality that you all have shown me during my
visits to your country.
NOTES
1. According to the 2004 Tirana in Your Pocket guide to Albania and its
people, there are also approximately two million ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, hun-
dreds of thousands in FYR Macedonia and Montenegro, and an estimated two mil-
lion in the United States, Switzerland, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Canada.
2. This common negative attitude toward deaf people has its roots in
Western history. Saint-Loup (1993, 392) discusses negative views of deafness in
medieval Western Europe, where human suffering and diseases were seen as signs
of sin, and people believed that those who were sick or had a handicap had
earned their suffering as a punishment for wrongdoing.
3. The objective of the Organizational Support Project is to improve the
lives of deaf people in Albania by ensuring equal opportunities to participate in
society. The project gives financial support and guidance for enhancing organi-
zational, advocacy, and sign language work, which has also served to strengthen
the Deaf association in Albania. Activities have focused on intense training for
ANAD staff and board members, as well as other representatives of the Deaf
community. The training has been provided mainly by foreign organizational and
linguistic advisors.
4. In this paper, I use the term “sign language work” to describe the work
done in Albania that mainly consists of dictionary work (language documenta-
tion, sign language research, and application of the results of the research into
publication use). It also includes training in Deaf awareness.
5. Colin Allen, a native deaf Auslan user who arrived in Albania in 2000
to work as an organizational advisor, estimated that communication among Deaf
people at that time consisted of 90 percent fingerspelling and 10 percent indige-
nous signs. He also observed that many of these few signs were also used as ges-
tures in the hearing Albanian society (pers. comm., Feb. 6, 2005; Mar. 13, 2006).
6. The working group members represented deaf persons who frequently
took part in ANAD activities. Therefore I assume that they were using more
signs than an average deaf person living isolated in the countryside.
7. Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, and 13 are taken from Gjuha e Shenjave
Shqipe 1, with permission from ANAD (Hoyer and Çabej 2005). Figures 5, 8, 9,
10, and 11 were created by Florjan Rojba.
8. In an initialized sign, the handshape corresponds through fingerspelling
to the first letter of the written form of the equivalent word in a spoken language.
9. For example, lexicalized fingerspellings in which a modification of ori-
entation and movement may indicate verb agreement are njof (“to know a

person”) (only the Albanian letters nj and f are clearly articulated); tall (“to
make fun of”) (the letters t and ll are clearly articulated); and gabim (“to be
wrong”) (the letter g is clearly articulated).
10. When informally comparing the situation in 2000 to that in 2006, Colin
Allen states that he has seen a noticeable increase in the number of signs in use
among the same Deaf individuals (Colin Allen, pers. comm., Feb. 6, 2005; Mar.
13, 2006).
11. Contacts with other sign languages such as Australian Sign Language
(Auslan) and Finnish Sign Language (FinSL) have not been examined systemati-
cally, and examples of these are therefore not dealt with here.
12. Colin Allen, Eduard Ajazi, and Florjan Rojba (pers. comm., Mar. 30,
2006; Apr. 13, 2006).
13. The international signs board, help, year, and problem are very sim-
ilar to or the same as the corresponding ASL signs.
14. Interestingly, the word shurdhër is not considered offensive in Kosovo,
where the majority language is also Albanian. The word is used, for example, in
the name (approved by the local Deaf people) Projekti mbi Trajnimin Organ-
izacional dhe Zhvillimin e Gjuhës së Shenjave në 11 Asociacionet Regjionale dhe
Klubet e Shurdhërve, an organizational training project for the Kosovar Deaf
community, which has an International NGO registration number.
15. For example, futboll (“football”), njof (“to know somebody”),
gabim (“to be wrong”), po (“yes”), re (“new”), filloj (“to start”), and tall
(“to make fun of”), where the place of articulation is the neutral space in front
of the signer.
16. Kendon (2004) provides an extensive presentation of studies on classi-
fying gestures starting in the Roman era.
17. In fact, the Mediterranean countries are a popular vacation destination
among Finnish Deaf people for this reason. There it is relatively easy for a Deaf
foreigner to communicate with hearing people on a basic level using only ges-
tures and facial expressions.
18. I am sorry to say that my attention as a linguist was first focused on how
the children communicated with me and not on the sad fact that they were hungry.
19. According to the hearing informants, some gestures started to spread in
Albania at the end of Communist domination. The thumbs-up for conveying a
positive meaning, the crossing of one’s index and middle fingers for “hope,” and
the time-out gesture used in sports for “break” were all new gestures for the
country. In other words, not only did the end of the isolation mean that deaf peo-
ple came in contact with signs from the outside, but the gestures that hearing
people used also became subject to external influence. Due to its isolated past,
Albania would be a gold mine for gesture studies.
20. See Frishberg (1975) for historical processes in ASL that result in
change toward arbitrariness. Also see Battison (1978) for constraints in sign
230 : karin hoyer

formation and phonological and morphological restructuring that apply in bor-

rowing.
21. Fingerspelling is still used, however, as a complement to the signs.
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appendix
The signs for president, government, budget, program, and par-
lament in International Sign.
president. The hand bends government

downwards from the wrist with
a repeated forearm rotation
movement
budget. The sign has a straight program. As the dominant hand

repeated movement away from moves downwards it taps repeat-
the signer edly on the palm of the nondom-
inant hand

parliament
234 : karin hoyer

ANN_Sign_Pozos_Gaul_193027 7/30/07 11:26 AM Page 235
The Sign Language of Mainland China
at the Ch’iying School in Taiwan
Jean Ann, Wayne H. Smith, and Chiangsheng Yu
In Taiwan today, the language of the Deaf community is Taiwan Sign

Language (TSL), one of the most studied sign languages of Asia.1
Western researchers perceive the groundbreaking works on TSL to be
Smith and Ting (1979), Ting and Smith (1984), Chao, Chu, and Liu
(1988), and Smith (1989). Smith and Ting (1979) and Ting and Smith
(1984) address the teaching of TSL to second-language learners, and
their work contains glossaries, practice sentences, introductions to each
chapter written in Chinese, and English glosses of each sign. The work
of Chao, Chu, and Liu (1988) is similar in nature, while Smith (1989)
examines TSL verb morphology. This significant body of work has led to
more theoretical and psycholinguistic work (Chang, Su, and Tai 2005;
Myers, Lee, and Tsay 2005). No published work of which we are aware,
however, explores our concern here. Our topic, which was first described
in Smith (1989), is both historical and sociolinguistic in nature
In a description of the three major linguistic influences on TSL, Smith
writes of the impact of “the language that was used in Taiwan before
1895, concerning which no information is available” (ibid., 1). On this
point, researchers maintain that when deaf people are isolated from one
another, sign languages do not develop. On the other hand, in societies
in which deaf people come together (e.g., in schools for deaf children),
natural sign languages have an opportunity to develop (Kegl, Senghas,
and Coppola 1999). Which of these circumstances (or permutations of
them) might have been the case in Taiwan before 1895 is not clear, but
if deaf people were able to congregate, it is perfectly possible that a sign
language might have developed. If it did, no record of it exists as far as
we know.
The second influence, according to Smith (1989), came from Japanese
Sign Language (JSL), which was brought to Taiwan during the Japanese
occupation (1895–1945) via Japanese teachers of deaf children. Support
for Smith’s claim comes from subsequent research that has systematically
235
(and in much greater detail) examined the JSL and TSL lexicons (Sasaki,
this volume). In addition, unpublished anecdotes from Taiwanese signers
who have traveled to Japan (Lin, pers. comm.) suggest that JSL and TSL
are for the most part mutually intelligible.
Although what we know about each of the early influences on TSL
could and should be examined in much greater detail, in this chapter, we
address the question of the third influence according to Smith (1989): the
sign language of mainland China (MCSL). Smith explains that MCSL
was brought to Taiwan in two ways after the Communists gained con-
trol of China in 1949. First, “students from Hong Kong who came to
study at the schools for the deaf in Taiwan” were one source of MCSL
(ibid., 2). Second, and perhaps more important, deaf refugees and former
teachers of deaf people who left mainland China for Taiwan were an-
other source of MCSL. As Smith (ibid.) notes, the deaf refugees from
mainland China established schools for deaf children in several cities in
Taiwan, but most of these facilities did not last very long. The one school
that survived — the Ch’iying Private Elementary School for the Deaf —
was located in southern Taiwan in the city of Kaohsiung and was estab-
lished by a deaf man from mainland China named Chiang Ssu Nung. In
fact, neither the literature nor the members of the Deaf community that
we consulted during this research have identified any other serious
source of mainland Chinese signs in Kaohsiung or anywhere else in
Taiwan.2
To clarify our research, we explain our assumptions and some of the
issues they raise. First, the generations of children who attended the
Ch’iying School were clearly taught the signs of mainland China (Chao,
Chiu, and Liu 1988). Since presumably many were from hearing fami-
lies, we suspect that they arrived at the Ch’iying School without any
knowledge of a sign language. Thus they may have picked up their first
language at the Ch’iying School. The exact character of the signing to
which the children were exposed is not clear: Was it Signed Mandarin,
MCSL, some combination of the two, or some other possibility? Our
first objective was to gain an understanding of the kind of signing to
which the children at the Ch’iying School might have been exposed.
It seems possible that MCSL influenced the signing of TSL because
many in the Deaf community have noted (if only anecdotally) that sign-
ers originally from the Ch’iying School communicate in TSL a little bit
differently than do signers from other places in Taiwan (Smith, pers.
comm.; Ku, pers. comm.).3 Our second intention was thus to learn more
236 : jean ann, wayne h. smith, and chiangsheng yu

about the differences deaf people perceive when they see TSL signed by
former students of the Ch’iying School and signers from other places in
Taiwan.
When the children left Ch’iying School (after sixth grade or even ear-
lier), they either continued their education or went to work in Kaohsiung
or elsewhere in Taiwan. At this point, they encountered TSL for the first
time and adopted it; however, unless they went back to the Ch’iying
School (the only place in Taiwan that used MCSL), they had no further
occasion to use MCSL. As the older signers of MCSL at the school died
out and the core of MCSL signers decreased, MCSL fell into disuse. The
Ch’iying signers and members of the Deaf community in general confirm
that, at one time, a small number of people (one consultant estimated
one hundred at most) in and around the school used MCSL. Smith, writ-
ing in the late seventies, suggested that a small Deaf community in
Kaohsiung was still signing MCSL, but by the early 1990s, Ann (2003)
was unable to find many MCSL informants. Our third research question
thus has two parts: first, to describe what we believe is a unique situa-
tion, and second, to learn more about the effects on deaf individuals of
the attrition and loss of MCSL in favor of TSL.
It seems clear that the issues related to MCSL in Taiwan cannot now
be examined directly (if indeed they ever could). Our problem, then, is a
bit like that of Groce (1985), who examined the use of sign language on
Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts. By the time
she conducted her research, all of the deaf people who had used the sign
language had passed away. Still living were hearing people who had
known the sign language but had not used it for many years. In this sit-
uation, Groce obtained information from historical records and inter-
views with those who remembered the sign language. In like manner, to
answer our questions about MCSL and TSL in Taiwan, we relied partly
on general historical information. Unlike Groce’s situation, we were able
to locate and conduct in-depth, open-ended interviews with deaf people
who had learned and used MCSL at the Ch’iying School (hereafter re-
ferred to as the Ch’iying signers).
We have divided the chapter into three main sections. First, we ex-
plore the history of signing and deaf education in mainland China, which
we consider relevant to the establishment of the Ch’iying School for the
Deaf in Kaohsiung. Second, we describe the founding of the Ch’iying
School. Third, we report on our interviews with the Ch’iying signers.
Finally, we return to our research questions and explain our conclusions.
The Ch’iying School in Taiwan : 237

THE ORIGINS OF DEAF EDUCATION IN MAINLAND CHINA
In order to provide a sense of what the Ch’iying School might have

been like in its early days, we explore the situation at the schools for deaf
children in China that may have influenced Chiang Ssu Nung, who, upon
leaving that country, established the Ch’iying School. Our brief history
draws extensively from an in-progress work by Wayne Smith, as well as
a few other sources. Smith’s work (n.d.) is a deep and rich account of
deaf education in Taiwan beginning with that in China and Japan.
Because no published work that we have found examines these issues in
nearly as much detail, we have relied largely on Smith’s work in ex-
plaining both the origins of deaf education in China and the establish-
ment of the Ch’iying School.
Before the 1880s, Smith says that few accommodations were made for
the deaf in China. Around the same time, in New York State, a young
woman named Annetta Thompson Mills, who had a deaf brother whom
she adored, was learning how to teach deaf students. Then, in New York
City, she had a deaf student whose father was a Presbyterian missionary
in China named Charles Rogers Mills. After Charles’s first wife died,
Annetta married him in 1884. In the same year, the Millses arrived in
Chefoo, (Qifu, now known as Yantai*) China. Having already acquired
a great deal of training, Annetta then spent two years learning Chinese
so that she could adapt her materials for use in teaching deaf students in
China. Thus deaf education in China began (Lytle, Johnson, and Yang
2005 2006; Smith n.d.).
The Millses (and others before them) realized that a country as popu-
lated as China had to have an enormous number of deaf children (Mills
1890), so they decided to set up a school. An energetic teacher and ad-
vocate for deaf people, Annetta used her influence at home and in China
*Smith’s original transcriptions of Chinese place names and names of people

generally appear in a romanization system known as Wade-Giles, as is custom-
ary in Taiwan. Standardly and more recently in the linguistics literature, Chinese
place names are written in hanyu pinyin which is a Romanization system in gen-
eral use in Mainland China. The two systems differ in many ways; a name writ-
ten in hanyu pinyin such as Wang Jian Guo would be written in Wade-Giles as
Wang Chien Kuo. We have left Smith’s transcriptions as they are in his original,
and have inserted the hanyu pinyin rendering of only the most relevant names of
places and people. Our insertions appear parenthesized in italics. Throughout
this paper, tone marks are suppressed on all romanizations of Chinese words.

to solicit donations to create a school for deaf children in China — with

some success. Eventually the Millses succeeded in setting up a highly in-
fluential school, which opened in June 1888, with a small number of deaf
students whom the Millses recruited. Their goal was for the graduates of
the Chefoo School to eventually establish more schools for deaf children
throughout China. Remarkably, in the hope of inspiring people to take
up the cause, Annetta traveled around China in 1908 to explain what she
was doing at the Chefoo School (Mills 1910). According to Smith (n.d.),
Fang (1979) says that, around 1915, most of the schools for deaf chil-
dren in China were run by graduates of Chefoo. Throughout its early
history, the Chefoo School struggled with financial problems, but it of-
fered a rather varied curriculum. Smith (n.d.) offers this description:
By the time the school was firmly established, it was divided into two
levels, according to the ability of each student. The first, or prepara-
tory, course lasted three years, and the second, or regular, course
lasted six years. As a new student came to the school, he or she was
placed where it seemed appropriate, and the curriculum was adapted
as necessary to meet his or her needs (Wang, L.-Y. [personal commu-
nication], 1980). . . .
Class size was usually quite small, averaging eight students
(Westling 1936). On a visit to the school in late 1926, a man named
Tung Yueh observed that, in the beginning classes, mirrors were used
to teach speech, and a tactile method was used to teach speech sounds.
Chinese characters were introduced along with a picture of the object
they represented or the object itself. As the children advanced into
higher level classes, their ability to answer questions also increased,
whether they answered through speech or by writing on the black-
board. By the time a student was enrolled in the highest level classes,
he was able to study many different subjects (Yueh 1927). At one time
or another the school offered courses in all of the following subjects:
speech, articulation, language and language drilling, Chinese charac-
ters, reading, Mandarin, romanized Mandarin, manual alphabet, vis-
ible speech, journal, letter, and composition writing, oral arithmetic,
history, Christian religion, good manners, and good morals. They
were also allowed to choose such vocationally oriented subjects as
photography, industrial training, drawing, lacemaking, knitting, car-
pentry, basketry, weaving reed verandah shades, sewing, cooking,
homemaking and . . . weaving.

Lytle, Johnson, and Yang (2005–2006) claim that, since the days of
the Chefoo School, the dominant approach to the education of deaf stu-
dents in China has been oralism. Interestingly, however, they acknowl-
edge that, in schools for deaf children, the reality has always included the
use of Signed Mandarin and MCSL. Smith confirms this claim. In a dis-
cussion of teaching methods used at the Chefoo School, Smith (n.d.)
comments:4
The school placed heavy emphasis on speech and oral training, al-
though the use of sign language was not ruled out. From [the] earliest
days in the school, one form or another of a manual alphabet was
used. Ellerbek, who lived across the street from the school in Chefoo
. . . stated . . . that not much weight was placed on spoken language
and lipreading due to special and insurmountable difficulties such as
the different dialects and the tones which are so important to the
Chinese language. Great emphasis was placed on fingerspelling and
sign language and many of the pupils were able to learn 2000 signs
per year, with a record of 900 in three months. They had learned to
express Chinese words in Latin letters and could therefore communi-
cate with Europeans who understood Chinese but didn’t know signs
(Ellerbek 1904). . . .
Mrs. Mills, herself, writing in 1907, spoke very highly of finger-
spelling, “which is learned by these pupils almost immediately.” And
of fingerspelling, Carpenter (1907) wrote, “By this method, and with
pantomime and gesture, they readily communicate with each other,
and seem to get much happiness out of life.” At first, the traditional
American fingerspelling system was used to spell out romanized
Mandarin. Later, after the use of Visible Speech became common in
schools for the deaf in the United States, a fingerspelled version of it
invented by an American named Edmund Lyon was adapted for use
in teaching Mandarin Chinese. Most of the pure signs which were also
used at the school were simple ones, suggested readily by the things
they represented, such as “hair-bun” for mother or “moustache” for
father (Wang, L.-Y. [personal communication], 1978).
In 1929 Annetta Thompson Mills, who was in her seventies, died in

Chicago, and her school then came under the direction of her niece,
Anita Carter. The story of the Chefoo School relates to the story of deaf
education in Taiwan because both graduates of the Chefoo School and

the students from the schools established by Chefoo graduates went to

Taiwan in 1949. Smith (n.d.) discusses two such cases:
Important to the later development of deaf education in the province

of Taiwan was the fact that two sisters, Wang Chao-ning and Wang
Lu-yi, who had grown up at the [Chefoo] school, later became teach-
ers there and picked up many of the techniques used at the school,
techniques which they later introduced into the schools for the deaf in
Taiwan. Wang Chao-ning was taught directly by Tyra Westling and the
two of them would often work together after school hours. Wang Lu-yi
taught at the Chefoo school for three and a half years, from about
1942 to 1946 (Wang, L.-Y. [personal communication], 1980). . . .
In 1924, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China
(Taiwan) promulgated a unified phonetic system for Mandarin, the
zhuyin fuhao or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols. At this time, most
schools for the deaf adopted the official government system, and
many tried to adapt the old Visible Speech fingerspelling system to the
new symbols. At least two fingerspelling systems grew out of this at-
tempt. One was developed at the Chefoo School itself and brought to
Taiwan by the Wang sisters in the late 1940s. The other was invented
by Yeh Yung-hua at the Nanking School for the Blind and Mute
which was founded in 1927. This system was brought to Taiwan by
Fang Hung-Ch’ou and his deaf son Fang Ping-Mei, also in the late
1940s (Fang 1979).
Directly relevant to the establishment of the Ch’iying School is the

Nan-t’ung School for the Deaf. Smith (n.d.) states that Chiang Ssu Nung
was one of the graduates of this school:
[The] . . . Nan-t’ung [Nandong] School for the Deaf . . . was located in

Lang-shan, outside the city gates of Nan-t’ung, Kiangsu [Jiangsu]
province. The formal name of the school was the Kiangsu Provincial
Nan-t’ung Private School for the Blind and Mute, and it was larger than
most of the schools for the deaf in that area of China. It offered a six-
year elementary school program, and also a three-year middle school
program, and had as many as 200 students at one time. Being a branch
of a normal school, around 1930 the school also added a three-year
teacher training component, from which the first set of trained teach-
ers graduated around 1933. Graduates of the program were sent

throughout the country to establish more schools, and some of the

schools they later served in included those in Nanking [Nanjing],
Shanghai, Peiping (Municipal), Hankow, Canton [Guangzhou],
Chenkiang, Suchow Co., Wuchin Co., Wuyang Co., Hsüchow,
Nanch’ang (Mun.), Sungkiang Co., Hangchow (Mun.), and Yanchow
in Shantung. Although certainly affected by the Japanese invasion of
China in the late 1930s, the school did remain open, and the principal
of the school around 1939–40 was Wang Ping-heng (Chiang, SN, [per-
sonal communication], 1978; 1980).
This brief account shows that education for deaf students was occur-
ring in mainland China at the time the deaf refugees left China for
Taiwan (1949–1950), that oral education was important, and that peo-
ple were signing in schools for deaf children. We cannot be certain
whether Signed Mandarin or MCSL was being signed in these schools,
although our information suggests that some deaf people used a natural
sign language, some used Signed Mandarin, and some used both. The
reasoning behind our assumption is that the invention and use of signed
codes for spoken languages is one way in which societies have dealt with
the concern that deaf children learn to read and write in the spoken lan-
guage with which they are in contact. Therefore, it seems reasonable to
suppose that Signed Mandarin might have been in use. Because hearing
people have always been involved in deaf education and have sometimes
outnumbered deaf people, we might even suppose that the use of Signed
Mandarin was extensive, but it also seems within the realm of possibil-
ity that native signers of MCSL also attended the school.
Furthermore, we maintain that, even if the school started out using
only Signed Mandarin, a natural sign language might still have developed.
Our proposal is based on the developmental psychological literature that
says that deaf children, when presented with manual codes for English
(which are notoriously difficult to process), seem to adjust these systems
in ways that make them more closely resemble natural sign languages in
their morphology, use of space, and the like (Goldin-Meadow 2003;
Supalla 1991). This research suggests that, if the children were exposed to
a manual code for Chinese at the Chefoo School, some of them might
have invented an MCSL. On a separate note, even though Smith (n.d.)
and Ann (2003) have said that TSL at present has no method of finger-
spelling, it seems clear that fingerspelling was at least somewhat available
at the beginning of deaf education in China and even in Taiwan.5

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CH’IYING SCHOOL IN TAIWAN
When the Communists took over mainland China in 1949, many peo-
ple (hearing and deaf) left the country. The deaf refugees went to
Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and some of them, finding no
schools in their new environments, set up new ones. Smith (n.d.) gives a
detailed account of the establishment of the Ch’iying School:
The first private school for the deaf in Taiwan after Taiwan’s retro-
cession to China was the Ti-sheng School for Mutes founded in 1950
in the city of Keelung by Mr. Chiang Ssu-nung. Chiang was a deaf
graduate of the Nant’ung Co. School for the Deaf, just north of
Shanghai, and had previously established a private school for the deaf
in the Chinese mainland before being forced to flee the mainland in
1949 in the wake of the Communist takeover. The Ti-sheng school
was never incorporated and lasted no longer than one year, after
which it was discontinued (Chiang, 1978). . . .
Determined to renew his efforts to found a school, Chiang moved
south to the city of Kaohsiung where in the autumn of 1951 he bor-
rowed some rooms in the Nantzu District of the city and established
the Kaohsiung City Private Ch’iying Elementary School for the Deaf
and Mute (Ch’iying Elementary School for the Deaf and Mute 1978;
Chiang 1978; Ministry of Education 1976). The school had many dif-
ficulties, not the least of which were the poor conditions of the school
rooms and the lack of money. In 1955 Chiang wrote an article urging
for support for his efforts to educate the deaf in the Kaohsiung area.
He noted that President Chiang Kai-shek felt that every city and
province should have a well-equipped school for the blind and mute,
but that, following World War II China only had at the most some 50
schools for the blind and deaf, most of which were not very large. He
noted that Taiwan had two public and only one or two private schools
for the blind and mute and that still 80% of the blind and mute chil-
dren of Taiwan were not being served, as opposed to 5% unserved
among the general population. Moving closer to home, Chiang noted
that Kaohsiung contained one of the twelve most important harbors
in China and was the second largest city in Taiwan, with a population
of 300,000. With the addition of Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties,
the number of persons amounted to over a million, meaning that there
could be as many as 2–3,000 blind and mute persons in the area.

Although Chiang said his school was doing its best to educate these
blind and mute citizens, its limited budget allowed the school to serve
only a small portion of them. He pleaded urgently for support to be
able to continue making a contribution to the deaf of southern
Taiwan (Chiang 1955). . . .
Chiang’s plea did not go unheeded. A piece of land near Lien-ch’ih
Lake in the Tsoying District of Kaohsiung was selected and donated
to the school as the site for a new school building. Other assistance
also came from Kaohsiung city (Ch’iying Elementary School for the
Deaf and Mute 1978; Chiang 1978). Construction work progressed
slowly, but finally by 1964 the new school building was completed
and the school was moved to the new location. At the same time, the
school filed its application for certification which was granted in April
of 1966 and the school became formally established as the Kaohsiung
City Private Ch’iying Elementary School for the Deaf and Mute
(Ch’iying Elementary School for the Deaf and Mute 1978). . . .
Although the school began small, with hardly twenty students
(Yang 1974), since the beginning of the 1970s the school has main-
tained a fairly constant student enrollment of just over 100 students,
with 106 in 1970 (Ch’iying Elementary School for the Deaf and Mute
1970), 107 (66 male and 41 female) during the 1974–1975 school
year (Ministry of Education 1976), and 101 (67 male and 34 female)
in 1978 (Ch’iying Elementary School for the Deaf and Mute 1978).
The students range in age from six to over 13 and are 90% from the
Kaohsiung City, Kaohsiung County, and Pingtung County areas
(Ch’iying Elementary School for the Deaf and Mute 1978). Since the
student dormitory has a maximum capacity of only twenty students,
the majority of the students at the school are daytime commuting stu-
dents. The students are served by nine teachers and three staff mem-
bers and are grouped into classes with 15–20 students per class. As of
1978, the school had graduated a total of eight classes of sixth
graders. Following graduation, most of these students continue their
studies at the Tainan school for the deaf, though a few go to the newly
established classes for the deaf at Ta-yi Junior High School in Tsoying,
and others go on to study at the schools in Taipei and Taichung
(Ch’iying Elementary School for the Deaf and Mute 197; Ministry of
Education 1976; Yang 1974). School funds have also been used to
purchase a group hearing aid used in pronunciation training, but a
lack of sufficient funds keeps the school from purchasing other needed

equipment and to build dormitories for all the students who need such
accommodations (Ch’iying Elementary School for the Deaf and Mute
1978; Yang 1974). The curriculum at the school is essentially the
same as that in regular schools with the addition of classes in speech
and auditory training. The textbooks used are also the same as those
used in regular schools, but teachers are selective in using them with
their deaf students. The school places emphasis on helping its students
adapt to their environment. Physical education is also stressed at the
school, and in March 1977 the school took part in Taiwan’s first spe-
cial Olympics competition, held in Tainan (Ch’iying Elementary
School for the Deaf and Mute 1978; Yang 1974; Ministry of
Education 1976).
Smith’s (n.d.) detailed picture of the founding of the Ch’iying School

is accompanied by a bit more information that is relevant here. He dis-
cusses a program at Ta-yi Junior High School in Kaohsiung, which grad-
uates of Ch’iying might have attended, and makes two further statements
about the Ch’iying School. First, reflecting the belief that no single
method of teaching (oralism, manualism) would be successful for every
deaf child, the Ta-yi program utilized a “total communication” ap-
proach. Because “most of the students [had] never received any speech
training before at the Ch’iying school,” the Ta-yi curriculum emphasized
speech training, which suggests that the Ch’iying School was very much
a signing environment. Second, the program set up “weekly meetings of
the Ta-yi Junior High School Sign Language Research Club, which pro-
vides a forum for teaching sign language to the teachers and for bridging
the gap created by the different sign languages used at the Ch’iying
school and in the Ta-yi program (Ch’iu, C. C., personal communication,
1980).” This is a clear acknowledgment that different languages were in
use at Ch’iying and Ta-yi.
The picture of deaf education in China and Taiwan suggests several
characteristics of the Ch’iying School. First, it appears that, once ac-
cepted, students were dealt with on a relatively individual basis, and the
curriculum was adjusted according to practical considerations that made
sense for each child. Second, the Ch’iying School did not have sufficient
funds to concentrate on speech; ideologically, it did not seem particularly
wedded to the idea of oral education for every deaf child. As Lytle,
Johnson, and Yang (2005–2006) assert in their discussion of deaf educa-
tion in China, financial need sometimes dictates whether signing or

speech will be emphasized. This seems to have been the case in Taiwan
as well. Third, learning Chinese written language was a serious concern,
and it seems reasonable to assume that Signed Chinese systems were per-
ceived as a way to accomplish this goal.
THE CH’IYING SIGNERS’ MEMORIES OF THE SIGN LANGUAGE

OF MAINLAND CHINA
Based on Smith’s recounting of the history, we estimate that the

Ch’iying School might have graduated 200–300 deaf students before it
stopped accepting new pupils. Compared with the schools that were
using TSL, it is apparent that MCSL in Taiwan was not likely to survive
and that the young signers who learned it first were at a serious disad-
vantage. The Ch’iying School has survived in Kaohsiung for some fifty
years, and although it is still in existence, it closed its doors to deaf stu-
dents in the early 2000s (Chiang, pers. comm.). For its first twenty to
thirty years, students learned MCSL; then, sometime in the late 1970s,
the transition was made to TSL (Smith, pers. comm.; Ann 2003).
Ann (ibid.) briefly reports on conversations with a few Ch’iying signers
in the early 1990s about their memories of MCSL. They remembered the
time they spent at Ch’iying using MCSL and demonstrated a few MCSL
signs. When it seemed that they could be prompted to remember more, a
dictionary of MCSL signs was presented, and the Ch’iying signers said that
the signs looked familiar. Our 2005 research was influenced by this ac-
count and by the fact that some of the Ch’iying signers told us they were
a bit nervous about being interviewed since they had used MCSL so long
ago and were afraid of giving “wrong” answers. Believing that it would be
difficult for them to remember the actual signs, we decided to try a more
ethnographic approach rather than a strictly linguistic one (e.g., using
structured language elicitation tasks). We hoped that this would ease their
anxiety and help them remember more about their use of MCSL. Nothing
about our approach precluded eliciting signs from the Ch’iying signers, but
this was not the only thing we were interested in. We used no MCSL
prompts such as a dictionary.
For the study, we tried to locate the Ch’iying signers that Ann had
known in the early 1990s and others that would be willing to participate.
Responses to our attempts were somewhat hesitant at first, similar to
Ann’s (2003) own experience. However, after some deliberation, our

contacts supplied names, and we were able to locate and interview five
suitable people, only one of whom Ann had known in the early 1990s.
The five Ch’iying signers were males in their late thirties to mid-fifties.
Two of the interviewees had graduated from senior high school; one had
graduated from junior high school; and two had graduated from sixth
grade. The five agreed to participate in an interview. Most of the sessions
took place one evening as we gathered informally at the home of a Deaf
leader in Kaohsiung. As far as we could determine, there have been no
monolingual signers of MCSL in Taiwan for quite some time; they all
sign TSL also. Yu, a TSL signer who is not familiar with MCSL, served
as an interpreter for four of the Ch’iying signers. The fifth, who was the
signer Ann had known in the early 1990s, was interviewed by Ann at a
later time and in another location in Kaohsiung. After the interviews, we
had many opportunities to return to the field for clarification. In addi-
tion, we were also able to chat with two or three other Ch’iying signers
at various times, but, for many different reasons, none of them were in-
terested in participating in a formal videotaped interview.
We informed each of the consultants of the predicted length of the in-
terview and our hope of publishing any useful information. We assured
them that their names would be kept confidential unless they wished
them to be made public, that they could stop answering questions at any
time, and that they would be paid for their services. The participants
filled out a brief questionnaire on their demographic and linguistic
background. Then each person participated in a rather open-ended,
videotaped interview, in which they were asked to relate their stories
and observations on certain points. Our goal was to ask eight related
main questions. We were prepared with several subquestions to use as
prompts in case the main question did not elicit as much from the par-
ticipant as we hoped. We told everyone that we might ask slightly dif-
ferent, unplanned questions, depending on their answers.
To elicit the Ch’iying signers’ memories of their language experiences
at school, the series of questions we posed dealt with the following topics:
their days at Ch’iying; where their Ch’iying teachers had come from; what
language the teachers had signed (if they knew); their own signing expe-
rience, as well as that of their friends and classmates; acquisition of their
first and second sign languages; and the circumstances under which they
had become conscious of the existence of two sign languages. The ques-
tions were written in English and Chinese and were available to the par-
ticipants and the interviewers before the sessions. At the time of the

interview, the questions were signed in ASL to Yu, who interpreted them
into TSL. Replies were given in TSL, and Yu interpreted them into ASL.
At any time, if any of the consultants seemed uncomfortable or overtly
said that they were ill at ease, we discussed other matters.
Our interactions took place in two connected rooms. The videotaped
interviews were held in one room, with the interviewers and the consult-
ant. Consultants who were not being interviewed were not prevented
from watching what the others said on videotape, but for the most part,
they elected not to do so. Only one interviewer was videotaped; the other
was off camera.
With respect to linguistic background and language use, our research
obtained the following results. Our consultants’ linguistic backgrounds
were uniform: All had significant hearing losses, had been deaf since they
were very young (less than three years of age), and had hearing parents
and families that did not sign; unsurprisingly therefore, they did not
know any signs before attending the Ch’iying School. We have heard of
only one Ch’iying signer (who was not available for an interview) who
reported slightly different circumstances; he had an older deaf sibling
from whom he had learned signs before attending the Ch’iying School.
All of the participants began signing using the mainland Chinese signs
and then switched to TSL. From the time they left the Ch’iying School,
TSL had been their primary language.
We began the interviews by asking the consultants to tell a story about
their experiences at the school in general (not connected with language);
it could be funny, sad, embarrassing, or any other type of story. The par-
ticipants easily remembered their days at the Ch’iying School; none ap-
peared to have the slightest difficulty with this. Their tales included both
positive and negative memories, which we do not report on here. A few
told stories that evoked strong emotions, and some anecdotes were quite
lengthy. Because of the apparent clarity with which the Ch’iying signers
described their memories, we felt confident of their recollections of lin-
guistic experiences.
We asked the consultants whether they recalled what it felt like to en-
counter a sign language for the first time and to sign for the first time.
All described feeling surprised and even puzzled to see people signing
when they were first brought (most by their parents) to the Ch’iying
School. They all said that they did not understand anything at first, but
little by little their teachers made things explicit and began to show the
children how to name items in the environment (e.g., “we call that

table, we call that drink”). As children, they found that they could
communicate about the things in their environment and more. Once this
became clear to them, each one described a certain degree of enthusiasm
for this new way of interacting with the world.
We turned next to the subject of the teachers in the Ch’iying School
and asked whether they were from Taiwan or China. The Ch’iying sign-
ers either recalled directly or remembered hearing that, in the earliest
days, at least some of the teachers were from China and not Taiwan. Our
consultants stated matter-of-factly that (through the years and by the
time they attended the Ch’iying School) Taiwanese teachers were hired
but were taught the mainland Chinese signs. The Taiwanese MCSL-
signing teachers, in turn, taught the students using the mainland Chinese
signs. When those teachers eventually retired, the new teachers hired
were certainly from Taiwan, said our consultants, and all of the new
teachers used TSL. We assume that this occurred around the time the
school made the transition to TSL. One consultant reported becoming
aware, much after the fact, that people could be from these two differ-
ent places and that this could affect how they signed; he said that he un-
derstood (only after he had learned TSL) that the reason his elementary
school principal signed differently was that he was from mainland
China.
We asked the Ch’iying signers whether they could recall the signs they
were taught as children and tell us the equivalent in TSL. Our consult-
ants’ memories of the mainland Chinese signs varied. The general result
was that four of the five could recall some signs (ten to twenty) with
some hesitation. The fifth consultant had sad memories of his days at the
Ch’iying School and did not want to remember the mainland Chinese
signs because it brought back these recollections. Most of the partici-
pants reported having no particular thoughts about having lost MCSL
when they learned TSL; for them, it was a matter of the usefulness of the
language. If most of those they met signed TSL, it was obviously better
to have fluency in that language, but if most of the people they met had
been MCSL signers, they would have signed MCSL.
One consultant had good memories of MCSL and said he felt a bit sad
remembering how TSL had essentially supplanted MCSL in his life and
in the small MCSL-signing community that once existed. He said, “I’m
happy when I see a sign from mainland China. I still remember them pas-
sively, and if I see them I understand them. . . . I’ve remembered them
almost forty years now. . . . I feel a strong connection with those signs

because I learned them first.” Upon picking up on our interest in learn-

ing more about MCSL in Taiwan, one consultant offered a few more
thoughts. He said, “You’d better ask me now and get this on videotape.
I don’t use MCSL every day. I just remember it especially if I ever see a
mainland China sign. But if you wait too much longer . . . it will be com-
pletely gone.”
Of the signers who remembered the signs of mainland China, those
that were mentioned the most often (and had TSL counterparts) were the
number system and signs such as mother, father, older/younger sis-
ter, and older/younger brother. One signer also remembered son,
daughter, tree, table, train, man, woman, chair, table, restroom,
morning, america, yellow, and mainland china. Another recalled
kaohsiung and television. These signs look very different in the two
languages. A few of these signs appear in examples 1 through 6. The TSL
signs are from Smith and Ting (1979), while the MCSL signs are from
the Chinese Association for the Deaf and the Educational and
Employment Department of the United Chinese Association for People
with Disabilities (2003).
We asked the interviewees whether their teachers used Signed
Mandarin or MCSL. In doing so we carefully explained that, by Signed
Mandarin, we were referring to a form of signing that followed Chinese
syntax, the character-by-character signing. After a short explanation, the
Ch’iying signers seemed aware of the difference between Signed
Mandarin and a natural sign language. Most of the consultants said that
what was signed in the classroom was Signed Mandarin. They explained
that the characters relevant to the lesson were first written on the black-
board, and the teachers then explained each one and taught them to the
children all of the accompanying signs. (One stated that this procedure
was the same as that to which hearing children were exposed in their ed-
ucations, except that the hearing children did not learn the signs and the
deaf children did not learn the spoken words.) The consultants said that,
outside of class in general and certainly on the playground, they used the
natural sign language. One consultant said that the teachers would use
the natural sign language in class if the students did not understand
Signed Mandarin. He made a point of saying that, “If the teachers cared
about the kids, they used the natural sign language and Signed
Mandarin, too. That way all the kids would understand.”
We elicited information about the Ch’iying signers’ linguistic experi-
ences by asking them to use introspection — thinking about their own

TSL mother CSL mother

Example 1
TSL father CSL father

Example 2
TSL older brother CSL older brother

Example 3

TSL younger brother CSL younger brother

Example 4
TSL older sister CSL older sister

Example 5
TSL younger sister CSL younger sister

Example 6

signing first of all and then also visualizing that of the other children at
the school. Were they themselves signers of Signed Mandarin or MCSL?
And the other children? The Ch’iying signers all stated that they can use
Signed Mandarin to some extent but that they do not always do so. Our
consultants seemed less enamored of natural sign language than might be
expected, although two of them commented on its efficiency in contrast
to the much more laborious Signed Mandarin.
The Ch’iying signers seem to have an intensely practical view of lan-
guage; they want to use the language that works for them in their society.
They appear to consider their society as composed of both deaf and hear-
ing people. If we think of manual codes for spoken languages and natural
sign languages as being situated on a continuum (Woodward 1973), most
of the participants described themselves as “more toward the natural sign
language end.” However, they also acknowledged using Signed Mandarin
sometimes, both as children and as adults. All of the interviewees said that
the other children variously used both Signed Mandarin and MCSL. One
said that, as children, they made fun of Signed Mandarin when they were
free to do so. However, for the most part, even though its disadvantages
are acknowledged, Signed Mandarin is not derided, nor is TSL exalted, as
noted in Ann (2003).
Having asked about the Ch’iying signers’ linguistic experiences with
respect to learning their first language, we then turned our attention to
the end of their time at Ch’iying, when they were to graduate and move
on to a different phase of life. We asked whether they recalled the cir-
cumstances surrounding their transition from MCSL to TSL. The five re-
ported how they first came into contact with TSL. Two went on to
school in Tainan, one went to a Kaohsiung school, and two began to
work after sixth grade. Most of them said they were completely stunned
when, upon graduating from sixth grade and leaving the Ch’iying
School, they found that the signing in their new surroundings was dif-
ferent. They reported at first not understanding anything; after a while,
however, they began to pick up the new language. All reported embrac-
ing it in the end because the community of signers to which they had be-
longed at the Ch’iying School was dwindling and also because, as they
grew up, they found numerous uses for TSL. Our consultants stated that
they had maintained contact (to varying degrees) with the Ch’iying
School after graduation. When they visited the school, they again signed
in MCSL. Some of the consultants said they became so used to knowing

both languages that eventually they were barely conscious of their bilin-
gualism.
We asked the interviewees whether they had ever communicated with
a person from mainland China and, if so, whether they were able to com-
municate easily. Our consultants felt reasonably confident that they
could communicate with deaf signers from China. Some had one or two
experiences, and one had a great deal of experience with signers with
whom they communicated rather well. All of them said that the obvious
difference they encountered was lexical: different signs for the same
thing.
Our consultants were all well aware that their signing is regarded as
a bit odd by signers of TSL from other parts of Taiwan, and all of them
attributed this partly to their having learned the mainland Chinese signs
first. But they suggested, too, that significant variation exists in TSL in
general, which may account for this. We asked whether they had any
sense of grammatical or formational differences between TSL and
MCSL. None of the participants had specifically studied TSL or MCSL.
Rather, their sign languages had served as the medium of instruction, and
they had never analyzed the differences. When asked what they thought
other signers find strange about their signing, they mentioned primarily
lexical items that they might use in conversation. The question about the
differences between MCSL and TSL was regarded with some surprise;
the answer was that everything is different.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS REVISITED
Returning now to our original questions, first, we wanted to gain

some understanding of the kind of signing to which the children at the
Ch’iying School were exposed. Our results suggest that they were ex-
posed in large part to Signed Mandarin, particularly in the classroom,
but that the children found ways and times to sign in a more natural
manner outside of class. This confirms reports we have heard about a
myriad of schools for deaf children in the United States and other places.
In addition, Lytle, Johnson, and Yang’s (2005–2006) account of the sit-
uation in China (in which MCSL and Signed Mandarin have always been
used, even though the general philosophy is oral) sounds particularly
reminiscent of what we have learned with respect to the Ch’iying School.
Also, since the Ch’iying School had limited resources (Ann 2003), it was

essentially a signing, not an oral, environment. It seems, then, that sev-

eral kinds of signing might well have been in use.
We made the least headway in understanding our second research
question about the differences deaf people perceive when they see TSL
signed by signers from the Ch’iying School and by TSL signers from
other places in Taiwan. The consultants themselves stated that they had
no explanations for these variations. They could give no examples and
merely asserted that there are indeed lexical differences. Our difficulties
in obtaining much insight into this question are fairly easily explained.
First, perhaps we have simply missed the opportunity to learn about the
differences in Ch’iying signing. Because MCSL has not been taught in
many years, there are now few new signers of MCSL (though some im-
migrants from China are MCSL signers). Many Ch’iying MCSL signers
have passed away. All of the signers we know of who used MCSL learned
TSL nearly thirty years ago and are certainly TSL dominant now. These
circumstances might preclude investigation of the question of Ch’iying
differences. Second, our ethnographic approach proved not to be effec-
tive in answering this question. A psycholinguistic or sociolinguistic ap-
proach might be more revealing. Finally, it seems possible that, given the
variation in Taiwan, Ch’iying signing, despite what we have heard, is not
(or perhaps is not now) appreciably different from other signing.
As for our third research question, we still suspect that the Ch’iying
signers exhibit a unique linguistic situation. We believe that a more sys-
tematic approach — working with both Ch’iying signers and signers
from other parts of Taiwan — might help us understand more about this.
Our work thus far suggests that answers to the particular questions
about MCSL might be lost to history, but they are nevertheless worth
pursuing. We hope someday to better understand the story of the use of
MCSL at the Ch’iying School in Taiwan. In the meantime, we have doc-
umented this fragment of the history of the Deaf community in Taiwan.
NOTES
1. We would like to thank Su Shiou-fen, Chen Yi-Jun, Ku Yu Shan, Lin

Fang-yu, and Lin Chin Tang for their assistance in finding consultants and
preparing materials for the interviews. Also, we gratefully acknowledge David
Quinto-Pozos for giving us the inspiration to write this chapter, as well as
Lourdes Pietrosemoli and two anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments.
Finally, we offer our thanks to our consultants, the Ch’iying signers, for their

willingness to discuss their linguistic backgrounds and their days at the Ch’iying
School.
2. Our sources, who know the Deaf community well, acknowledge that,
although refugees from mainland China established several schools and some of
them subsequently taught the Chinese signs, any influence of MCSL from this sit-
uation has long been lost.
3. There is a proliferation of different signs for the same referent in Taiwan
(Ann 2003), a fact that many deaf Taiwanese themselves report. In fact, Lytle,
Johnson, and Yang (2005–2006) state that, in mainland China, MCSL is not
standardized.
4. Smith (n.d.) also discusses the schools for deaf children in China, such
as the first school in Beijing, which was established around 1920 and 1921 and
had a strict oral curriculum. He maintains that this school adopted a different
educational philosophy from that of most of the schools for deaf students in
China, suggesting that the more common philosophy was either exclusively or at
least partly manual.
5. Actually, Ann (2003) discusses several cases of the use of the fingers to
represent letters. However, as early as the early 1990s, the Ch’iying signers said
they did not know anything about fingerspelling. Lytle, Johnson, and Yang
(2005–2006) suggest that fingerspelling is currently in use in China. During the
course of our research, we met a signer from China who confirmed the wide-
spread use of fingerspelling.
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CONTRB_Sign_Pozos_Gaul_193027 7/30/07 11:54 AM Page 259
Contributors
Jean Ann is an Associate Professor at the State University of New

York at Oswego. Her primary area of research and publication is sign
language linguistics. Her most recent publication is a book entitled
Frequency of Occurrence and Ease of Articulation in Sign Language
Handshapes: The Taiwanese Example (2006) published by Gallaudet
University Press. In addition, she has published articles with Long Peng
on the structure of world Englishes and linguistics in K-12 education.
Jeffrey Davis has worked as an interpreter, teacher, and researcher in
the fields of signed language linguistics and deaf studies for the past
twenty-five years. He holds a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Linguistics;
served on the faculty of Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.
(1987–1990); and on the faculties of the University of Arizona (1990–
1994) and Miami-Dade College (1994–2000). He has been a professor
at the University of Tennessee since 2000. In addition to fieldwork and
research, he teaches ASL, Linguistics, Interpretation, and Translation.
His research involves the linguistic analysis of ASL, interpretation
processes, and translation studies. For the past two decades, he also has
been researching the historical and current use of American Indian Sign
Language. He presents internationally on a variety of topics related to
sign language, linguistics and interpretation. He can be reached through
http://web.utk.edu/jdavis49/.
Karin Hoyer holds a Master’s degree in General Linguistics from the
University of Helsinki, Finland. She is a doctoral student at the
University of Helsinki, and has also got a degree in sign language inter-
preting. She has previously worked on a research project on the lexicon
of Finland-Swedish Sign Language. Currently she is involved in sign lan-
guage dictionary work in Albania and Kosovo as part of Balkan devel-
oping cooperation projects carried out by the Finnish Association of the
Deaf.
David McKee is Research Director of Deaf Studies Research Unit and
Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at Victoria University of
Wellington, New Zealand. David has taught and conducted research in
the United States. In 1992 he and Rachel Locker McKee established and
taught New Zealand’s first full-time sign language interpreter training
course at Auckland University of Technology.
259
David’s main research interests have been in Deaf Studies, including

the corpus-based description of New Zealand Sign Language, sociolin-
guistic variation and NZSL lexicography, and comparative studies of
sign languages (American, Australian, British, and New Zealand sign
languages). He was consulting editor for the Concise Dictionary of New
Zealand Sign Language (Bridget Williams Books, 2002).
Rachel Locker McKee is Programme Director of Deaf Studies in the
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at Victoria
University of Wellington. Her professional experience as a sign language
interpreter in New Zealand and the United States from 1985 led to her
involvement in Applied Linguistics and the establishment of training
programs for interpreters and for Deaf people as teachers of NZ Sign
Language (NZSL). Her research publications have focused on analysis of
the structure and use of NZSL, sign language interpreting, and the cul-
ture of the New Zealand Deaf community.
Karen Pointon is a Māori member of the New Zealand Deaf commu-
nity. Karen is a qualified teacher of NZSL who has taught at Victoria
University and in other community settings. A former president of the
Deaf Association of New Zealand, Karen has an active role in Deaf
advocacy at national and local levels.
David Quinto-Pozos received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the
University of Texas at Austin and is currently an Assistant Professor in
the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In addition to his research and teaching,
Professor Quinto-Pozos is an RID-certified sign language interpreter and
has participated as a content expert for the development of certification
exams (both ASL-English and ASL-Spanish-English). His research inter-
ests include language contact and related sociolinguistic phenomena,
cases of atypical sign acquisition in deaf children from signing house-
holds, and the interaction between linguistic and gestural devices in
signed languages.
Daisuke Sasaki completed his doctoral studies in linguistics at the
University of Texas at Austin, and is currently an Assistant Professor of
Linguistics and English at Hokusei Gakuen University, Sapporo, Japan.
He is also a board member of the Japanese Association of Sign
Linguistics. His research interests include grammatical aspects of sign
languages, such as phonology, morphology, and syntax, and he is work-
ing on his dissertation on the lexical comparison of Japanese Sign
Language with Taiwan Sign Language and Korean Sign Language.
260 : contributors
Kirsten Smiler (Te Aitanga a Mahaki, Rongowhakaata, Te

Whakatohea) has recently completed her MA thesis (Applied Linguistics)
which focuses on issues of language and identity for Māori members of
the New Zealand Deaf community, and is currently working on her PhD
thesis (Applied Linguistics) in the area of early intervention for Māori
deaf children. Kirsten has worked with the Deaf Studies Research Unit
and the Health Services Research Centre at Victoria University of
Wellington, and has research interests in Māori Deaf people, deaf chil-
dren, linguistic variation in New Zealand Sign Language, Deaf families,
rangatahi Māori, youth wellbeing, disability studies and Māori health.
Wayne H. Smith received his Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1989
where his research focused on verb morphology in Taiwanese Sign
Language. He has spent a total of six-and-a-half years living in Taiwan
promoting awareness of TSL, serving as an advocate for the Deaf com-
munity in the areas of education and employment, conducting research
into the history of deaf education in Taiwan, and authoring, along with
members of the Deaf community in Taiwan, a two-volume textbook of
Taiwanese Sign Language entitled Shou Neng Sheng Qiao (Your Hands
Can Become a Bridge). He is currently director of the Learning Unlimited
Language School in Surry, Maine (www.mrlanguage.com) where he has
offered individual and small-group instruction in over twenty different
spoken and signed languages. He may be reached at wayne@
mrlanguage.com.
Judith Yoel is currently a doctoral student in the Department of
Linguistics at the University of Manitoba in Canada. She did her BA and
MA at the University of Haifa in Israel. She is presently researching
Canada’s Maritime Sign Language.
Chiangsheng Yu is a Deaf man who grew up in Taipei, Taiwan, in a
hearing family who did not know anything about TSL. His first language
is Chinese; he learned TSL at age thirteen. He figured out that to get a
good education and have a successful career, he would need to find a way
to get to Gallaudet. Eventually, he came to the ELI at Gallaudet and
began to learn English and ASL. He still remembers the feelings he had
the first time he heard that “deaf people can do anything but hear” and
the inspiring American Deaf people he met. Chiangsheng earned two de-
grees at Gallaudet University: a BA in Studio Art/Secondary Education,
and an MA in Deaf Education. His education was important to him be-
cause it qualified him to work with deaf senior high school students in
Taiwan. Since 2001, he has been a teacher at Kaohsiung City Municipal
Contributors : 261
Special School for the Deaf. Chiangsheng enjoys the challenge of work-
ing with hearing parents who have deaf children. In addition, he is cur-
rently the leading TSL lecturer at Pingtung and Tainan Community
Colleges. He enjoys helping people understand that Deaf Taiwanese peo-
ple can do anything but hear!
262 : contributors
INDEX_Sign_Pozos_Gaul_193027 7/30/07 11:21 AM Page 263
Index
additive bilingualism, 157 ASE and, 44

African sign languages, 13 code switching vs. borrowing in, 10
age of exposure to sign language, 20 comparison with other sign lan-
Ajazi, Eduard, 197, 198 guages, 7
Akamatsu, C. T., 6 early descriptions of, 104–6
Albanian National Association of the emblematic gestures in, 17–18
Deaf (ANAD). See Albanian English, contact with, 4–6
Sign Language (AlbSL) indigenous languages and, 13
Albanian Sign Language (AlbSL), 20, interference and, 11–12
21, 195–234 lexical comparisons with, 8, 130
Albanian conventional gestures vs. media and, 166
signs in AlbSL, 219–27 Mexican Sign Language and, 184
analysis and results, 220–25 mouthing and, 6
objectives and methods, 219–20 Native American Signed Languages
relationship between emblems and, 9, 12–13, 14, 88, 101–2,
and idioms in spoken lan- 107–10
guage, 225–27 nonmanual syntactic markers with
contact with international signs, topicalization in, 4
206–16, 227–28, 229 Russian Sign Language, 156
borrowed signs for new concepts, signals and gestures, nonmanual,
208–11 16–17
contact-induced changes in in- Andoni, B., 195, 197
digenous signs, 211–13 animals, lexical signs for, 177, 180,
foreign way of coining new signs, 182–83
213–16 Ann, Jean, 21–22, 140–41, 235, 243,
gestural behavior, definitions of, 246–47, 253
216–18 archaisms, 139, 142
gesture use in Albanian hearing articles, 4
community, 218–19 ASE. See Australasian Signed English
recent history of Albania and its ASL. See American Sign Language
people, 196–98 Association of the Deaf and Hard of
transition to AlbSL, 199–206 Hearing of Serbia, 215
Algonquian language family, 88 auditory iconicity, 15. See also
Allard, R., 157 Iconicity
Allen, Colin, 208, 212, 215 Australasian Signed English (ASE),
Altenberg, E., 181 44, 55
Alternate sign systems, 88 Australia, German speakers in, 161,
American Annals for the Deaf and 175, 177
Dumb (journal), 103, 104, 107 Australian Sign Language (Auslan),
American English, 139 130, 145n23, 206, 208
American Sign Language (ASL) auxiliary verbs. See verbs
263
Baçi, A., 195, 197 Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Nuñez, 117n5

Baker, C., 166 Cable, T., 139
Ban Khor Sign Language, 14 calqued speech, 185n10
Barzilay, M., 178 Campbell, L., 90, 94, 95, 117n5,
Battison, R., 6, 155–56 128–29
Baugh, A. C., 139 Campbell, W., 125
Bell, Alexander Graham, 126 Canada, North American Indian
bilingualism Signed Language varieties in.
borrowing and, 43, 60 See North American Indian
contact-induced change and, 208 Signed Language varieties
interference and, 175 Carter, Anita, 241
language attrition and, 157 Casey, S., 16–17, 224
mixed languages and, 216 Castañeda, Pedro de, 117n5
social, 3 Catalonia and Catalonian Sign
Blackfoot language family, 88 Language (LSC), 36, 64, 71
Boas, Franz, 86, 90, 117n6 Chefoo School (China), 239–41
borrowing Chiang Kai-shek, 128, 244
Albanian Sign Language and, 208– Chiang Ssu Nung, 242, 243–44
11, 216, 222, 227–28 China, 7l, 238–43. See also Mainland
ASL and PISL and, 9 China Sign Language (MCSL);
bilingualism and, 43, 60 Taiwanese Sign Language (TSL)
code switching vs., 10 Ch’iying School for the Deaf, 21–22,
emblems and, 17 235–59. See also Taiwanese
exposure to language and, 43, 60 Sign Language (TSL)
factors motivating, 43 Clark, J. L., 110
fingerspelling and, 6 classifier constructions, 10–11, 15, 19
gender dynamic in, 67–68 CODA-speak, 5
historical relatedness and, 93 code mixing, 5, 6, 10, 171
loans and, 3 code switching
Māori Deaf and NZSL and, 42–43, AlbSL and, 216
46–58, 73 ASL and Cued Speech as, 6
minimum cultural pressure and, 73 borrowing vs., 10
mouth, 175 emblematic gestures and, 17
similarly articulated signs and, 134 fingerspelling as, 6
bound morphemes, 4 language attrition and, 171
Boy Scouts, 105 language contact and, 2, 3, 5
Brazilian Sign Language, 70–71 NZE and RTM and, 37–39
British English, 139 RSL and ISL and, 171
British Sign Language (BSL) sequential, 5
emblematic gestures and, 217–18 between signed and spoken lan-
language comparisons and, 8, 42, guage, 6–7
44, 51, 130–31, 145n23 between signed languages, 10–11
Brown, P., 17 simultaneous combinations and, 5
brow raise, 16 Swedish Deaf minority in Finland
Bulgaria, 7, 8, 96 in, 51
264 : index
cognates, 93–97, 115, 129 domain-specific language use, 171

Cokely, D., 4 Dunbar, William, 103, 104, 107, 111
commonly used gestures, 10 Duncan, S., 224
community, 66, 185n7, 204, 223–24
constructed action, 10–11, 172–73, “ease score” for handshapes, 140–41
177–79 education, foreign instructors and,
contact signing, 4, 5 13, 20–21
control of language, 71 Efron, D., 216
conventional gestures, 217–18 Elton, F., 21, 95
convergence, 3 emblems, 17–18, 21, 217–18, 220,
coordinate terms, 178 223–27
Coppola, M., 205 Emerson, Susan, 215
copula, 4 English, contact with American Sign
Coronado expedition, 117n5 Language (ASL), 4–6
Council of Indian Sign Language, 113 English manual codes, 243
creoles, 3, 9 English Presbyterian Mission
Crow language family, 88 (Taiwan), 125
Cued Speech, 6, 23n3 ethnolinguistic history, language as
cultural areas of Native North instrument of, 39–42
America, 117n4 ethnolinguistic vitality. See Russian
cultural diversity movements, 74 Sign Language (RSL)
cultural renaissance of Māori, 36–38 European sign languages, 6, 7. See
also specific countries
Dakota language family, 88
Davis, Jeffrey, 6, 9, 85, 89 face threatening, 17
Deaf and hearing people, contact be- FAD (Finnish Association of the
tween, 7 Deaf), 197–98
Deaf Education in the Oral Method Fahey, Shaun, 75
(Japan Association to Promote Fang Hung-Ch’ou, 241
Speech for the Deaf), 127 Fang Ping-Mei, 241
“Deaf View” conference (New fingerspelling
Zealand), 37 in Albania, 21, 199, 200–201, 202–
decolonization, 32, 75n2 4, 207, 211, 214, 228
Denmark, 218 borrowing and, 6, 42
dialect, 94 in China and Taiwan, 243, 257n6
dictionaries, 32, 44, 52, 142, 201 as code switching, 6
Dictionary of New Zealand Sign as product of language contact, 6
Language (Kennedy et al.), 32, RSL and ISL and, 175, 176, 183
44, 52. See also Māori Deaf sign combinations and, 5
people (MD) and Māori signs Finland, 7, 36, 51, 96
(MS) Finnish Association of the Deaf
diffusion, Māori Deaf (MD) and, 61 (FAD), 197–98
“direct absorption” policy in Israel, first-language attrition, 154–55. See
185n8 also Language attrition
directionality, 17, 19 Fischer, S., 4, 142
Index : 265
Fishman, J., 171 historical relatedness of languages,

foreigner talk, 3, 4, 9, 12 93–94, 96–98, 106–7, 124,
foreign instructors in deaf education, 133–34
13, 20–21 Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL),
Former Soviet Union (FSU), 13, 208. 142
See also Russian Sign Hoxha, Enver, 21, 195
Language (RSL) Hoyer, Karin, 13, 20, 21, 94–95, 195
French Sign Language (LSF, Langue Humphries, T., 66, 71
des Signes Française), 8, 13, 98 Hyams, N., 93
Frishberg, N., 106–7 hybrids, 42, 44
Fromkin, V., 93
FSU. See Former Soviet Union Ichida, Y., 124, 142–43n1
Furukawa, Toshiro, 126 iconicity, 3, 8, 14–16, 95–97, 134,
215
Gallaudet, Thomas Hopkins, 9, 104, idioms, 225–27
107 “Indian Language of Signs”
Gallaudet University, 21, 72, 105 (Gallaudet), 104, 107
genetically related languages, 93–100, Indian Sign Language. See North
106, 115, 128–29, 134, 139–40 American Indian Signed
Georgian Sign Language, 159 Language varieties
German language, 6, 161, 175, 177 Indian Sign Language film dictionary,
gestures, 16–19, 20, 118n10, 216–27 111–12
glossing, 57 indigenous identity, 36
Goddard, I., 90 indigenous languages, 13–14, 21, 31
Goldin-Meadow, S., 217 initialized sign formations, 42
Gordon, R. G., Jr., 89–90 instrumental classifier, 180, 186n14
Greece, 218 interference, 3, 9, 11–12, 156, 157,
Greenberg, J.H., 124, 134 172–78
Groce, N. E., 8, 237 interlingual structural similarity of
Guerra Currie, A.-M., 8, 94, 97, 98, sign languages, 19–20
100, 124, 130, 131, 141 interlinguistic intelligibility of sign
languages, 16
Hamazaki, Katsukuma, 126 international aid to Albania, 205
handshape variations, 9, 11–12, 131, International Sign (IS), 4, 12–13, 21,
134–39, 140–41. See also spe- 206–16, 227–28, 229
cific languages interpretation and interpreters
“hand talk,” 87 in FSU, 163
Hashimoto, Tokuichi, 127 in Israel, 165
Haugen, E., 42 Māori Deaf (MD) and, 37, 38, 48
Hausa Sign Language (HSL), 13 sign production of, 23n2
hearing-initiated coinages, 49–50 trilingual, 38, 48, 65, 68
Hebrew Ireland, 7, 8, 36
ISL and, 164, 165, 167, 168, 171, IS. See International Sign
175–76 Israeli Sign Language (ISL), 12. See also
signed, 177 Russian Sign Language (RSL)
266 : index
Italian Sign Language (LIS, Lingua Landry, R., 157

Italiana dei Signi), 15–16 language attrition, 3, 7, 13, 155–65.
Italy, 218 See also Russian Sign
Language (RSL)
Jankowski, K., 74 language contact
Janzen, T., 16 characteristics of signed language
Japan Association to Promote Speech that influence contact in visual-
for the Deaf, 127 gestural modality, 14–20
Japanese Federation of the Deaf, 131 interlingual structural similarity
Japanese Sign Language (JSL), 7, 8, 9, of sign languages, 19–20
98, 118n9, 235–36. See also prevalence of iconicity, 14–16
Taiwanese Sign Language utilization of gestural resources,
(TSL) 16–19, 20
Japan Institute for Sign Language considerations for study of, 1–28
Studies, 130–31 sign language literature, 3–4
Jefferson, Thomas, 103–4 contact between signed and
Johnson, K. E., 240, 246, 255 spoken/written language, 4–7
Johnston, T., 217 contact between two or more
Jordan, I. K., 155–56 signed languages, 9–14
JSL. See Japanese Sign Language lexical similarities between sign
languages, 7–9
Karaj, Brunilda, 198 spoken language literature, 2–3
Kaufman, T., 42 language decline and death, 3, 4,
Kauppinen, Liisa, 209 13–14
Kawamoto, Unosuke, 127 language family, 94, 117n3, 128–29
Kelston Deaf Education Centre (New language shift, 3
Zealand), 37, 61, 74 Language Skills Attrition Project
Kendon, A., 217, 231n16 (LSAP), 160–61
Kennedy, G., 8, 131, 134, 145n23 Levinson, S., 17
Keresan of New Mexico Pueblo, 88 Lewis and Clark expedition (U.S.), 103
knowledge, effect of new areas on lexical borrowing. See borrowing
signs, 208 lexical comparisons, 3, 8, 129–30, 131.
Komorova, Anna, 159, 167, 197 See also North American Indian
Konishi, Shimpachi, 126 Signed Language varieties;
Korean Sign Language (KSL), 123– Taiwanese Sign Language (TSL)
24, 128, 142–43n1 lexical gaps, 156, 178–83
Kosovo, sign language in, 215 lexical innovations, 173–74
Kroeber, A. L., 91, 110, 117n6 lexicalization process, 220
Kumura, Kingo, 125 lexical knowledge, 155
Kumura Education Center for the lexical similarity
Blind and the Mute, 125 described, 7–9, 93–98
Kuschel, R., 129 Native American Indian Sign
Kyle, J.G., 96, 97 Language varieties and, 107–
Kyoto Institute for the Blind and the 10, 115–16
Mute, 126 TSL and JSL and, 124
Index : 267
Libër me Shenja (Book with Signs, Deaf agendas, 66–69, 73–74

Albania), 205, 213–14, 228 hearing agendas, 63–66, 73–74
Liddell, S., 18–19 linguistic outcomes of contact be-
linguistic frequency, 155 tween Te Reo Māori and
linguistic vs. nonlinguistic elements in NZSL, 44–62
contact between signed lan- acceptability of contact forms,
guages, 11 57–60
loans diffusion of new contact forms,
borrowing and, 3 60–62
IS and, 211 established lexicon, 44–46
Māori Deaf (MD) and, 37–39, 44, forms of recent borrowings, 50–
46, 50–51, 54, 73 58
semantic, 42–43 grammatical functions of MS,
Long, J. S., 99, 104–7 53–58
Long, Stephen H., 99, 103, 104, new borrowings motivated by in-
111 teraction in Māori domains,
LSAP (Language Skills Attrition 46–50
Project), 160–61 Signed English influence on MS
LSC. See Catalonia and Catalonian forms, 55–57
Sign Language Māori references in established
LSM (la Lengua de Señas Mexicana). NZSL lexicon, 34–35
See Mexican Sign Language method and data, 32–34
Lucas, C., 4, 5–6, 9–10, 11, 19 socioeconomic background of lan-
Lytle, R. R., 240, 246, 255 guage communities, 35–39
contact between Te Reo Māori
Macalister, J., 43 and New Zealand English, 38–
MacFarlane, J., 17–18 39
Mainland China Sign Language Māori and ethnic identity, 35–36
(MCSL), 21–22, 127–28, 142, Māori cultural renaissance and
235–59. See also Taiwanese development of Māori Deaf
Sign Language (TSL) pride, 36–38
Mallery, Garrick, 86, 90–91, 100– theoretical considerations, 39–43
101, 104, 117n6 borrowing as outcome of lan-
Mandarin, signed, 242–43, 251, 253, guage contact, 42–43
255 language as instrument of ethno-
Māori Deaf people (MD) and Māori linguistic history, 39–42
signs (MS), 7, 31–81 Māori Language Act (1987), 36
ethnic identity through use of MS, Māori Language Commission, 65
69–72 Mao Tse-tung, 128
construction of MD identity in Martha’s Vineyard, 8, 237
written and spoken Māori, 72 mass media, 166–67
name of language, MS or MSL, MCCE. See Modern Classics Cultural
70–71 Enterprises
ideologies and ownership of MS, McClave, E.Z., 16
62–69 McKay-Cody, M., 88–89
268 : index
McKee, David, 7, 8, 31, 32, 33, 131, interference and, 12

134, 145n23 language contact and, 5
McKee, Rachel, 7, 13, 31, 32, 33 Māori Deaf and NZSL, 73
McNeil, D., 118n10, 217 RSL and ISL and, 175–76
MCSL. See Mainland China Sign semantic importation and, 42
Language movement in signs, 131, 134
MD. See Māori Deaf people (MD) MS and MSL. See Māori Deaf people
and Māori signs (MS) (MD) and Māori signs (MS)
media, 166–67 mutual intelligibility, 94–95, 124,
medieval Western Europe, 230n2 143n2, 236
Meier, R.P., 8, 124, 141
metaphorical construction, 15 Nagoya Municipal School for the
Mexican immigrants’ language expe- Blind and the Mute, 127
rience, 156 Nakamura, K., 124
Mexican Sign Language (LSM, la Nakota language family, 88
Lengua de Señas Mexicana) name of sign language, 70–71, 73,
ASL and, 184 205–6
code switching vs. borrowing in, 10 Napier, J., 13
emblematic gestures in, 17–18 National Anthropological Archives,
emblems and, 224 100–101, 104
foreign instructors and, 21 National Archives, 99
interference and, 11–12 National Association of Deaf (Israel),
lexical similarities between sign lan- 163
guages and, 7, 8, 9, 130 National Deaf Māori Deaf Hui con-
lexical similarity in, 98, 118n9 ference (2005), 32–33, 69
shared symbolism in, 97 Natural language attrition, 154–55.
Mills, Annetta Thompson, 238–41 See also Language attrition
Mills, Charles Rogers, 238–39 natural sign languages, 253
Ministry of Absorption (Israel), 163, Navajo (Diné) language family, 88
168 negation, 12
miscues, 172, 174, 178, 179–81, neologisms
184 ASE and, 56
missionaries, 13 Māori Deaf (MD) and, 49, 52, 54,
Mithun, M., 92 55, 58–60, 61–62, 73
mixed languages, 216 Newell, L. E., 117–18n7
Modern Classics Cultural Enterprises New Mexican Pueblo Isolates, 88
(MCCE), 125, 126 Newport, E. L., 19
Morford, J., 17–18 new varieties of languages, emergence
Moscow Bilingual School for the of, 3
Deaf, 167 New Zealand English (NZE), 38–39,
motivated new coinage, 47–48 42, 46
mouthing New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL),
ASL and, 6 8, 130, 145n23. See also
attrition and, 175–76 Māori Deaf people (MD) and
described, 185–86n11 Māori signs (MS)
Index : 269
New Zealand Sign Language Bill primary and alternate sign lan-
(2006), 36 guage, 88–89
Nicaraguan Sign Language, 204–5 West’s studies, 92
Nigeria, 13 results
Nihon Syuwa (NS). See Japanese Sign baseline for lexical similarity for
Language (JSL) historical relatedness, 106–7
Nishikawa, Kichinosuke, 127 earliest Indian Sign descriptions
Nonaka, A. M., 14 and ASL, comparison of, 107–
noniconic communication, 8, 15 10
nonmanual syntactic markers with PISL/ASL comparisons of early
topicalization, 4 twentieth-century descriptions,
nonreiterative switches, 10–11 110
North American Indian Signed written descriptions of lexically
Language varieties, 9, 85–122 similar signs, comparison of,
Dunbar/Long (early 1800s) and 107–10
Tomkins (early 1900s), lexical Sanderville and Weatherwax, com-
comparisons of, 111–12 parisons of, 113–14
Indian Sign Language film dictio- Northern Ireland, 8, 96
nary, 111–12, 113 Norway, 218
present study, 93–106 numeral incorporation, 210–11
coding procedures, sample illus- NZE. See New Zealand English
trations and summary of, 100–
103 Old Bangkok sign variety, 14
corpus of lexical description, 98– Old Chiangmai sign variety, 14
99 Olshtain, E., 178
early descriptions of American online digital archives, 116–17n2
Sign Language, 104–6 O’Regan, H., 36
historical sources for lexical com- Organizational Support Project
parisons, 103–4 (Albania), 197–98, 208, 230n3
methodologies considered and Osaka Prefectural School for the
employed in, 95–98 Deaf, 128
natural language of signs, 104 Osugi, Y., 124
standards, 99–100
terminology and methodology, Pakeha, 36, 41, 62, 74
93–95 paraphrase in spoken language, 174
previous studies, 86–92 Parkhurst, D., 8, 9, 94, 95, 96–97,
contemporary documentation 118n8
and description, 87–88 Parkhurst, S., 8, 9, 94, 95, 96–97,
early anthropological linguistic 118n8
fieldwork, 87 “partially structured grammars,” 2
lingua franca, evidence of histori- paternalism, 66, 73–74, 203
cal, 90–92 Pavlenko, A., 155
origins and spread, 90 phonologically similarly articulated
Plains Indian Sign Language, 89– signs, 125, 130, 131–34, 139,
90 141
270 : index
phonologies of sign languages, 10, 19 hypothesis, 158

pidgin languages, 3, 4, 9, 12, 90, 206 methods, 160–61
Pidgin Sign English (PSE), 4 questionnaire, 170–71
Pietrosemoli, L., 17 results, 178–83
Pizzuto, E., 15–16 subjects, 158–60
Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL), 9, attrition in spoken and signed lan-
87, 89–90, 105, 110, 114–16. guages, 153–55
See also North American Indian collapse of Soviet Union and, 208
Signed Language varieties ethnolinguistic vitality model
plain verbs, 19 Deaf immigrants and, 170
plural markers, 4 described, 156–57, 161–62
Pointon, Karen, 7, 31, 32, 33, 75 psychological level of, 168–69
“point” signs, 18 sociological level of, 162–65
politeness, 17 sociopsychological level of, 165–
“possible cognates,” 129 68
primary signed languages, 88 interference theory, 156, 157, 172–
Private Chi-Ying School for the Deaf, 78
125–26 language aptitude and vitality be-
protoforms, 139 liefs, 169
Providence Sign Language (PSL), lexical gaps, 156, 178–83
203–4, 224 psychological level of ethnolinguis-
PSE (Pidgin Sign English), 4 tic vitality, 168–69
“puppeting,” 177 sociological level of ethnolinguistic
Pursglove, M., 167, 197 vitality, 162–65
cultural capital, 164–65
Quinto-Pozos, David, 1, 10, 11, 17, demographic capital, 162
171, 176, 184, 224 economic capital, 163–64
political capital, 162–63
Reagan, T., 208 sociopsychological level of ethno-
Reischauer, August Karl, 126–27 linguistic vitality, 165–68
Rodman, R., 93 educational support, 167–68
Rojba, Florjan, 198, 199–200, 202, interpersonal contacts, 165–66
214 media, 166–67
Roman era gestures, 231n16
Rosenstock, R., 12–13, 206–7, 209, Sanderville, R., 112–14
210–11, 215 Sasaki, Daisuke, 9, 123, 139, 141
Russian, signed, 166, 167, 169 Schembri, A., 217
Russian Sign Language (RSL), 13, Schmaling, C., 13
153–91 Schoenmakers-Klein Gunnewiek’s def-
ASL and, 156 inition of attrition, 155
attrition in signed languages in im- Scott, Hugh, 105–6, 111–12, 113
migrants to Israel, 155–65 Seigler, H. W., 154
analysis, 161–69, 170–78 Seino, S., 126
current study and framework for self-repairs, 175
analysis, 156–57 semantic importations, 42
Index : 271
semantic loans, 42–43, 50–51, 54, 55 social evaluation, 64

semantic mismatches, 134 Southeast Asia sign languages, 13
“semi-creolization,” 2 Spanish expeditions to Florida, 117n5
semiotics, 117n6 Spanish sign languages, 7, 8, 64, 96,
Senghas, A., 205 98, 130
sequential switching, 5 spatial descriptions, 19
Shabani, I., 195, 197 spoken language
Shaffer, B., 16 contact between signed and spoken/
shared symbolism, 97, 124, 134 written language, 4–7
Shiga Profectural Oral School for the language contact in, 2–3
Deaf, 127 semantic importations and, 42
Shou neng sheng qiao (Your Hands Stokoe, W.C., Jr., 129
Can Become a Bridge; Smith & Strang, B., 43, 60
Ting), 131 substitutions, 52
Signed English, 44, 55–57 subtractive bilingualism, 157
Signed Hebrew, 177 Supalla, T., 12, 19, 88, 206
Signed Mandarin, 242–43, 251, 253, Sutton-Spence, R., 21, 95, 217–18,
255 224, 225
Signed Russian, 166, 167, 169 Swadesh, M., 129
The Sign Language: A Manual of Sweden, 218
Signs (Long), 104–5, 106 Swedish Deaf minority in Finland, 51
sign language contact. See language Swiss German Sign Language, 6, 51
contact symbolism, 124
sign language defined, 90 symmetry, 140
“Sign Language of the Indian Nations
to the West of the Mississippi Tainan School for the Blind and the
River” (Jefferson), 103–4 Mute, 125, 126
sign vocabulary lists, 118n8, 129–30, Taipei, 125, 126, 128
131 Taiwanese Sign Language (TSL)
similarly articulated signs, 100, dialects of, 128
144n17. See also phonologi- historical background of deaf edu-
cally similarly articulated signs cation in Taiwan, 125–27
simplification, 140 Japanese Sign Language (JSL) com-
simultaneous combinations of linguis- parative study, 9, 123–50
tic devices, 5 current study, 130
Siouan language family, 88 discussion, 133–39
Slutzky, Emmanuel, 163, 164 handshape differences, 134–39
Smiler, Kirsten, 7, 31, 32, 33, 67–68 historical perspective on changes
Smith, Wayne H., 21–22, 125, 126, in signs, 139–41, 235–36
127–28, 131, 235–36, 238–46 methodology, 130–32
Smithsonian Institution, 90–91, 99, previous studies of language
100–101, 112 comparisons, 129–30
social aspects of language contacts, 2 results, 132–33
social bilingualism, 3 Mainland Chinese Sign Language
social contact, 43 (MCSL), 21–22, 235–59
272 : index
arrival in Taiwan, 127–28 TTY conversations, 5

Ch’iying signers’ memories of Turian, D., 181
MCSL, 246–55
establishment of Ch’iying School United Kingdom, 8
in Taiwan and, 243–46 United States, 8, 20. See also North
genetically related languages and, American Indian Signed
128, 142 Language varieties
origins of Deaf education in Uzbek Sign Language, 159
mainland China, 238–43
research questions, analysis of, Valli, C., 4, 5–6, 9–10, 11, 19
255–56 Venezuelan Sign Language (VSL), 17
sign language in Taiwan, 127–29 verbs
Taiwan Provincial Taichung School agreement, 12
for the Deaf, 125 auxiliary, 19–20, 128, 144n13
target language, attempt to master, 4 “nonagreement analysis” and, 23n4
Tarone, E., 174 plain verbs, 19
Taylor, A.R., 90, 92 victimization, 203–4
temporary production errors, 184 visual-gestural modality
Te Reo Māori (TRM). See Māori characteristics of signed language
Deaf people (MD) and Māori that influence contact in, 14–
signs (MS) 20
Thailand, indigenous sign languages code switching and, 5
in, 14 effect of, 1–2
Thomason, S. G., 42 interlingual structural similarity of
Ting, L.-f., 128, 131, 235 sign languages, 19–20
Tino Rangatiratanga movement (New prevalence of iconicity, 14–16
Zealand), 36–37, 64 utilization of gestural resources,
Tokyo Oral School for the Deaf, 126– 16–19
27 visual homonyms, 47, 52, 58
Tokyo School for the Blind and the visual iconicity, 3, 15–16. See also
Mute, 126, 128 iconicity
Tomkins, W., 110, 111, 113–14, visual perception in signed language,
118n11 178–80
topicalization, 4 vocabulary lists. See sign vocabulary
topic markers, 16 lists
torso movements, 17 Voeglin, Carl, 91, 117n6
trade languages, 90 VOG (All-Russian Federation of the
transference, 3 Deaf), 162, 164
trilingual setting, contact in. See Volterra, V., 15–16
Māori Deaf people (MD) and VSL (Venezuelan Sign Language), 17
Māori signs (MS)
TRM (Te Reo Māori). See Māori Waas, M., 161, 175, 177, 180
Deaf people (MD) and Māori Walters, K., 8, 124, 141
signs (MS) Washabaugh, W., 203–4, 224
TSL. See Taiwanese Sign Language Weatherwax, Martin, 113–14
Index : 273
Webb, R., 12, 206 word order, 12, 20, 128

Weinreich, U., 206 World Federation of the Deaf, 197,
Welsh variety of British Sign 227
Language (BSL), 51 Wright, Dutton, 126
Weltens, Bert, 153 Wurtzburg, S., 90, 117n5
West, LaMont, 91, 92
Williams, H.W., 76n2 Yanagida, Kunio, 142
Winford, D., 208 Yang, J. H., 240, 246, 255
Woll, B., 21, 95, 96, 97, 129–30, Yoel, Judith, 13, 153
131, 134, 145n23, 217–18, Yu, Chiangsheng, 21, 235
224, 225
Woodward, J., 4, 13, 106–7, 129, Zaitseva, Galina, 159, 164
131 Zeshan, U., 217
274 : index

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What is the focus of the different volumes?

What is the focus of the different volumes?

What topics are discussed in Part One?

What topics are discussed in Part One?

Sign

David Quinto-Pozos, Editor

Sign Languages in Contact

Ceil Lucas, General Editor

VOLUME 1 Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities

Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities

Gallaudet University Press

© 2007 by Gallaudet University.

American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper

Editorial Advisory Board, vii

PART ONE: CONTACT IN A TRILINGUAL SETTING

PART TWO: LEXICAL COMPARISONS

Comparing the Lexicons of Japanese Sign Language and Taiwan

PART THREE: LANGUAGE ATTRITION

PART FOUR: FOREIGN ASSISTANCE AND LANGUAGE CONTACT

The Sign Language of Mainland China at the Ch’iying School

Editorial Advisory Board

Robert Bayley Lourdes Pietrosemoli

Series Editor’s Introduction

It is with great pleasure that I welcome Volume 13 to the Soci-

Editor’s Introduction: Outlining

Considerations for the Study

of Signed Language Contact

To my knowledge, this volume represents the first book-length collec-

cross-modal comparisons would be spoken language pidgins and cre-

LANGUAGE CONTACT IN SPOKEN LANGUAGE LITERATURE

Language contact has been an active area of linguistic inquiry in the

one could zoom in the linguistic microscope to examine the numerous

LANGUAGE CONTACT IN SIGNED LANGUAGE LITERATURE

Perhaps the most-studied aspect of signed language contact has been

Contact between Signed and Spoken/Written Languages

Some of the earliest writings on contact between English and American

perspective for the analysis of contact situations is necessary. Such a

interlocutor, is performed by deaf adults (Hoffmeister and Moores 1987;

Addressing Lexical Similarities between Sign Languages

Parkhurst 2003). These works provide a snapshot of the lexical charac-

Contact between Two or More Signed Languages

it is not clear how to label a particular utterance (e.g., a so-called classi-

viewer. Additionally, Rosenstock reports that there even seem to be dif-

That optimistic outlook, however, may not be shared by Nonaka

CHARACTERISTICS OF SIGNED LANGUAGE THAT LIKELY

Based on various themes that repeatedly surface in writings about

The Prevalence of Iconicity

table 1. Characteristics of Signed Language That Likely Influence Contact in

The prevalence of iconicity

However, deaf signers consistently guessed the meanings of signs even

The Utilization of Gestural Resources

Signers take advantage of commonly used nonlinguistic gestures from

directional gestures and torso movements of nonsigners are similar to

figure 1. The emblem/gesture well as produced in the LSM-ASL contact

If Liddell’s account is accurate, the variability of the directional com-

The Interlingual Structural Similarity of Sign Languages

space to depict grammatical relationships, while some do not. Basic

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE STUDY OF SIGNED

munities throughout the world, the indigenous sign language or visual-