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The Surprising History of Sign Language and Body Gestures
Every moment of the day, in virtually every corner of the world, people of all cultures employ various hand and body gestures to elucidate an idea, emphasize information, or substitute for human speech.
A wave of the hand, a raised middle finger, a “thumbs up” or “peace sign” are among the many universally-understood physical gesticulations used to span language barriers, avert misunderstanding, or otherwise communicate what words alone cannot.
In many cases, signing and physical gestures are essential to making oneself understood.
While sign language and physical gestures no doubt predate socialized verbal communication, linguists (anthropologists who specialize in language) have long questioned why spoken language (long considered the more advanced form of communication) didn’t automatically replace sign language as humankind’s preferred manner of communication as the ability to speak developed.
Why didn’t we relegate signs and gestures to the past?
Only in recent decades have linguists recognized hand signs and physical gestures as complete, natural languages in and of themselves; complementary to verbal language but not interchangeable. And rather than fade from popularity in favor of spoken language, the number and uses of sign language and body gestures have increased in the last century (particularly after the advent of the Internet), becoming more complex, refined, and specialized.
While most forms of sign language and physical gesticulations are impromptu, random, or even inadvertent in use, others, like ASL (American Sign Language), or those used by various armed forces around the world, are specialized forms of sign designed to literally replace human speech.
But whether employed by the hearing impaired or those possessing all five senses, hand and body gestures have proved to be a universal means of communication, often more effective than spoken language alone.
And while several so-called “dead languages” have lost their standing — Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, and Coptic—sign languages and body gestures are still very much alive and increasingly indispensable.
Out of Africa
Palaeoanthropological (human evolution), genetic (genes/DNA), human anatomical (the body), and archaeological (artifacts and fossils) evidence indicate that modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) first inhabited Africa at least 300,000 years ago.
While early man no doubt made a variety of sounds, the first non-random speech sounds are believed to have been uttered some 70,000 years ago (variations of a “clicking” sound)–humankind doubtlessly relying almost exclusively on hand and body gestures to communicate. (Speakers of the Khoisan languages, located in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, continue to use these “clicks” even today.)
Evidence further shows that between 90,000 and 60,000 years ago, an exodus took place in Africa during which early humans migrated to the north, east, and west (most likely due to climate change), spreading into Asia, Europe, and coastal Africa. Scientists believed that those who migrated to the coastal areas encountered new sources of nutrition (in particular, an abundance of omega-3 fatty acids-rich seafood) that not only helped rewire their brains for speech, but also promoted the physical development of the mouth, tongue, and throat mechanisms necessary to form complex sounds about 50,000 years ago.
By that point in human development, “signing” and body gestures were so inherent as to make verbal speech redundant.
Ascent to Civilization
As humans began exploring the far reaches of their environment (first on foot, then on sailing craft), they eventually encountered other humans much like themselves, yet different in various ways: different in appearance, different in the customs they practiced, different in their skills and abilities, different in the ways they communicated. Humankind had begun the ascent to civilization.
Due to a number of key factors (climate, environment, water, food, and natural resources), particular groups of early humans developed intellectually faster than others as they spread across the globe, resulting in a number of significant achievements.
For example, around 140,000 years ago, the San People of South Africa created a social collective spanning six modern-day African countries, and were likely one of the first societies in the world to ritualize burial practices. Then, around 50,000 years ago, the Aboriginal Australians created what is believed to be the oldest cohesive civilization on Earth, and were possibly the first people to build fish traps and practice ritual cremation.
These milestones were followed by those of the people of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), some 10,000 years ago; the Empire of Jiahu, in Henan, China, built by the progenitors of the Chinese people about 9000 years ago; the Indus Valley Civilization of northwestern South Asia, some 5300 years ago; and of course, the Egyptian Empire, about 5100 years ago.
Separated across the face of the Earth, these societies developed their own distinct ideologies, belief systems, world views, forms of governance, and. Of course, ways of communicating. But a time came for each when communication with peoples beyond their civilization became beneficial; in some cases, critical.
Pidgin Pantomime
At various points along humankind’s social evolution, it became advantageous for members of one group/culture to be able to communicate with another, though neither group spoke the language of the other. In many such cases, these groups invented what are termed “pidgin” languages; unique, simplified forms of communication cobbled together from two or more existing verbal and sign language systems. The resulting artificial language was henceforth used as these groups’ primary means of communication.
Sometimes referred to as “contact” or “trade” languages, travelers, traders, and individuals who knew these specialized languages had a number of advantages over those who did not. For example:
Around 4000 years ago, Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq and parts of Iran, Syria, Kuwait, and Turkey) was able to establish an ongoing trade system with neighboring countries by creating a specialized “pidgin” language used primarily for commerce. Similarly, around 2150 years ago, Zhang Qian, an envoy of Chinese Emperor Wu, established the so-called “Silk Road” trade route between China and central Asia–bridging language barriers through the region via creation of pidgin languages. And in the 15th Century, the Portuguese were able to dominate world trade (involving numerous native cultures around the world including those of the so-called “Ivory Coast” of Africa) using pidgin languages.
Interestingly, in several multilingual settings around the world where people from different cultures needed to establish a common means of communication, the resulting “pidgin” language eventually replaced the native languages; Haitian Creole, which developed on the sugarcane plantations of Haiti between French colonists and African slaves, is one such example.
Native American Gesture Speech
In the late 15th Century, when European explorers and settlers first encountered the indigenous peoples of North America, they were greeted with verbal and signed languages that, to the colonists’ surprise, were easily comprehended—virtually eliminating the need to create pidgin languages.
Of greater surprise was the fact that, despite the linguistic differences between the various Native American tribes and the varying languages spoken by Europeans, Native American “gesture speech” functioned universally.
In the 1880s, Lieutenant-Colonel Garrick Mallery, an American ethnologist specializing in Native American sign language, invited seven members of the North American Ute tribe to the National Deaf-Mute College in Washington, DC, in an effort to better understand the universality of Native American “gesture speech.” He also asked several deaf students fluent in ASL (American Sign Language) to attend.
With researchers present, Mallery had the deaf students convey scripted stories to the Ute using ASL sign language. Astonishingly, apart from a few inaccuracies (attributed to cultural differences rather than communication ineffectiveness), the Ute were able to follow and repeat the stories told them. This led Mallery to conclude that “what is called the sign language of Indians is not, properly speaking, one language, but … it and the gesture systems of deaf-mutes and of all peoples constitute together one language—the gesture speech of mankind—of which each system is a dialect.”
Designating Ute “gesture speech” Plains Indians Sign Language (PISL), Mallery at first assumed this form of language had once been used by most (or all) tribes of North America, but came to discover that while Native Americans commonly used PISL for inter-tribal communication (or in cases when spoken language was possible but silence preferred; i.e. hunting or in ceremonial settings), a number of tribes (the Arapaho, Comanche, Cheyenne, Paiute, Lakota, Blackfoot, and Crow) possessed fully functional sign languages reserved solely for communication among themselves.
The concept that Native American “gesture speech” is a universal form of sign language (and its potential uses) is still being explored today.
Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL)
From the early 18th Century until 1952, the island of Martha’s Vineyard, located just south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, was likely the most deaf-friendly community in America.
Having institutionalized a local form of sign language known as Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL) among both the deaf and hearing sectors, deafness–while a considerable handicap in most of the country–was not a barrier to interacting in public life in this community.
The first deaf individual known to have settled on Martha’s Vineyard was a carpenter and farmer named Jonathan Lambert, who moved there with his hearing wife in 1694. By 1710, migration to the island (a large percentage of which came from a particular area of south England known as the “Weald”) had virtually ceased, but by that time, the endogamous community that resulted (in this case, marrying within a certain ethnic group), contained a high incidence of hereditary deafness that persisted for the next two centuries.
Since a national form of sign language had yet to be adopted in America, the villagers of Martha’s Vineyard are thought to have utilized a version of Old Kentish Sign Language (OKSL) originating in Kent, UK, but it is also commonly believed that aspects of sign used by local Native tribes were incorporated into the local system.
With varying concentrations of deafness occurring across the island, the town of Chilmark (on the western end of the island) had the highest incidence (1-in-25), and at one point, in a section of Chilmark called “Squibnocket,” as many as 1-in-4 were deaf, resulting in a localized version of sign known as Chilmark Sign Language.
In the 19th Century, these various versions of sign were absorbed into the newly imported Old French Sign Language (OFSL), which later became part of American Sign Language (ASL) used nationally. From the late 18th to early 20th Century, virtually every resident of Martha’s Vineyard possessed some degree of fluency in the emerging ASL.
During the early 20th Century, a migration from the Vineyard to the mainland resulted in there being no remaining fluent signers of MVSL. A woman named Katie West, the last deaf person born into the island’s sign-language tradition, died in 1952 (though there were a few elderly residents still able to recall MVSL when researchers began studying the language in the 1980s).
Linguists are attempting to preserve this unique form of sign language, but have yet to experience MVSL firsthand.
American Sign Language (ASL)
By the early 19th Century, a number of signing systems for the deaf were in common use in Europe, among them the Old French Sign Language (OFSL), brought to the US by Laurent Clerc, a Deaf Educator from France. In 1817, Clerc and American educator Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet established the American School for the Deaf (ASD) in Hartford, Connecticut, which later became the center for ASL (American Sign Language).
The ASD provided a setting where the OFSL and other regional sign languages (developed in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and Henniker, New Hampshire, among others), could come together to form what is now known as ASL.
Driven by the founding of schools specifically for the deaf (such as the New York Institution for the Deaf (founded in 1818), and the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf (founded in 1820), ASL continued to evolve and develop as the deaf community grew in the US, as did the linguistic diversity of the organization, with regional variations emerging.
Defined as a “natural language” (any language that occurs naturally in a community by use and repetition without conscious planning or intention), ASL is today a comprehensive and methodical visual language expressed by employing both manual and non-manual features–features that do not involve the hands. ASL combines coordinated movements of the face, hands, and torso, as well as phonemic components (spatial-gestural speech sounds).
(Interestingly, the complex combination of hand signs, body gestures, head movement, and sounds that comprise American Sign Language is comparable to those commonly used by ordinary hearing individuals to communicate.)
Contact Signing/Pigin Signed English (PSE)
Based on the same principle as all “pidgin” languages, “contact signing” or “Pigin Signed English” (PSE) is a language that develops between deaf individuals (using sign and body gestures) and hearing individuals (using verbal language), or individuals who frequently come in contact with both English and ASL signing. Not considered a true language, PSE contains a mixture of ASL rules and English grammar.
Although the signs and gestures used in PSE derive from ASL, they are not used in a standard ASL manner—adhering more closely to the commonly-used English language pattern. Lacking strict rules, PSE speakers may choose to ignore some aspects of English grammar, such as tenses (signing, “I finish study” rather than “I studied”), definite and indefinite articles (“the,” “a,” “an”), or the verb ending “ing.”
PSE is individualistic and highly personalized—but adaptive versions have been used by groups of individuals. Users may or may not incorporate finger spelling, depending on what they are most comfortable with.
The American Sign Language Alphabet
Created to be used in conjunction with ASL (primarily to spell names, places, and technical terms), the American Sign Language alphabet is a series of 26 hand shapes, gestures, facial expressions, and utterances used to represent the letters of the English language alphabet, as well as numbers, symbols, and other linguistic elements.
While virtually every primary language on the planet has a corresponding version of a manual/hand-spelled alphabet, use and incorporation into everyday sign language differ country to country; primarily because in some parts of the world, a “deaf alphabet” preceded adoption of a national sign language system, making “finger spelling” more common.
Moreso, it’s not unusual for individuals in the US, Canada, and Europe (particularly the elderly) to prefer finger spelling over ASL.
Dedicated Signing/Signaling
Since the time of the ancient Greeks (and likely before), armies have used special hand signs to convey information or instructions, while avoiding detection by the enemy. Today, virtually every military and police force in the world has its own unique system of hand signs and gestures to accommodate this necessity.
Since WWII, US armed forces have employed a selection of dedicated hand signs/signals categorically known as SOP or Standard Operating Procedure. These include: “patrol” hand signals (stop, hide, double-time), “vehicle” hand signals (slow down, back up, be alert), “scouting” hand signals (eyes left/right, advance, take point), and “combat” signals (halt, take cover, prepare to fire)–among others.
Additionally, each of the six branches of the US armed forces (Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy, and Space Force), as well as each special operations unit, has their own specialized version of the SOP.
But dedicated hand sign/signal systems are hardly limited to the military setting.
Today, classroom teachers, Boy Scouts, sports teams, bicyclists and motorcyclists, surveyors, street gangs, fraternities and sororities, construction crews, firemen, scuba divers, farmers and ranchers—are among countless professional organizations and social groups around the world using hand signs/signals for communication and, in some cases, self-identification (or “high-signs”).
Statistically, next to face-to-face verbal communication, dedicated hand sign/signal systems are the fastest-growing form of communication on the planet.
Signs Ahead
According to UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), of the world’s 6500 living languages, half are expected to fade from use by the end of the 21st Century. (95% of the world’s languages are currently spoken by only 5% of the population.)
Factoring in the effects of globalization (ignited primarily by the Internet and Social Media), languages that survive to the next century will likely undergo such extreme homogenization that current speakers would find them virtually unrecognizable.
But considering humankind’s primordial relationship with non-verbal inter-human communication, linguists think it unlikely that sign language (in its various evolving forms) will undergo the same transformative evolution as spoken language because individual signs–unlike individual spoken words–possess inherent specific meanings roughly comparable to complete sentences, which can’t be deconstructed. Additionally, spoken language is constantly subject to simplification, slang, and infusion of foreign terms, while sign is relatively fixed.
The post The Surprising History of Sign Language and Body Gestures first appeared on History Defined.
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