Hand Talk: Sign Language among American Indian Nations

(review)

David F. Armstrong

Sign Language Studies, Volume 12, Number 1, Fall 2011, pp. 155-157 (Review)

Published by Gallaudet University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2011.0018

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/453635

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BOOK REVIEW

David F. Armstrong

Hand Talk: Sign Language among American Indian Nations, by

Jeffrey E. Davis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2010, 244 pp., cloth, $95, ISBN 978-0-5218-7010-8,
paperback, $32.99, 978-0-5216-9030-0)

With this volume, Jeffrey Davis makes a major contribu-

tion to our knowledge of a significant signing tradition, the signed lan-
guage used as a lingua franca and for other purposes over a very wide
part of North America—the language commonly known as Plains In-
dian Sign Language or Plains Sign Talk. Most of the focus of the
signed language linguistics that has emerged during the past half cen-
tury has been on the signed languages of deaf people. Here Davis ap-
plies, in comprehensive fashion, the techniques of this emergent
discipline to a signed language that was developed and used primarily
by hearing people. It is significant that Davis maintains and demon-
strates, in fact, that this signing “system” is a language in every mean-
ingful sense of the word and that it is not simply a surrogate for a
spoken language or a complex gestural system. In this regard, Davis
documents the existence of and describes in some detail the wealth of
historical materials, written, illustrated, and filmed, concerning PISL,
a language that is certainly endangered. In addition, the author main-
tains a web site where readers may view examples of the illustrations,
photographs, and video material that form the corpus for the book’s
analyses. The overall work would represent an important addition to
the literature on signed languages for these reasons alone, but it is
Davis’s historical and linguistic analyses that elevate Hand Talk to the
first rank.
To make the case for the linguistic status of PISL, Davis exam-
ines its structure at the level of phonology, morphology, and syntax

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156 | Sign Language Studies

employing the concepts of sign language linguistics that have been de-
veloped since the last comprehensive study of the language was con-
ducted by LaMont West in 1960. Students of the history of sign
language studies will be particularly interested in chapters 2 through
6 that provide detail on the development of sophisticated linguistic
treatments of PISL. Davis provides in-depth discussions of the work
of Garrick Mallery in the 1870s and ’80s, that of Hugh Scott in the
1930s, and the aforementioned study by La Mont West, carried out
under the influence of major figures in the field of anthropological lin-
guistics, including Alfred Kroeber. Davis shows that West’s work in
the late 1950s, in particular, paralleled that of William C. Stokoe dur-
ing the same period. In this regard, Davis concludes that “[t]he level
of linguistic analysis and description conducted by West in the late
1950’s did not occur for ASL until Stokoe, Croneberg, and Casterline
(1965) developed a phonetic notational system for signs and compiled
the first comprehensive dictionary of ASL” (97). Davis even discusses
what happened to the mysterious West after he completed his doctoral
dissertation on PISL (never published) at Indiana University.
The linguistic meat of the book is contained in chapters 7 (“Com-
parative Studies of Historical Relatedness”) and 8 (“Linguistic Analysis
of PISL”). In these chapters, Davis uses the tools of modern linguistics
(including socio- and historical linguistics) to support, in essence, three
major assertions: 1. That PISL is a bona fide human signed language, in-
dependent of any other spoken or signed language; 2. That PISL shows
consistency through time with respect to its phonological and lexical el-
ements; 3. That it shows dialectal variation. Of particular interest, with
respect to number 1 above, is his demonstration that PISL and ASL are
independent languages, although they have been in contact and each
one, at various times, may have influenced the other.
An especially valuable aspect of the book is Davis’s reconstruction
of the anthropological conditions under which PISL arose and was ex-
tended as a lingua franca over such a vast area. These conditions in-
cluded the tremendous linguistic diversity that existed in North
America prior to the arrival of Europeans and the introduction of the
horse to the Great Plains shortly thereafter. The availability of horses
led to a quantum leap in the mobility of the people with consequent
contact among the users of a wide variety of mutually unintelligible
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Book Review/Hand Talk | 157

spoken languages. Existing gestural systems could then be built into a

sophisticated lingua franca for use in trade, diplomacy, etc. The subse-
quent penetration of the Plains area by Americans during the nine-
teenth century and the seizure of Indian lands led to the decline of
native languages and the replacement of PISL by English as a common
language. Thus, PISL is now a seriously endangered human language.
Most readers of Sign Language Studies will not need to be persuaded
that it is important to preserve and revitalize the world’s endangered
languages, especially those that are signed, but it is nevertheless vital
that this message be repeated whenever possible. It is to be hoped that
Hand Talk and the associated web-based materials that Davis has com-
piled will be used to accomplish what he has established as one of his
purposes in carrying out this work:

We have been encouraged by American Indian individuals, groups,

and communities to continue our research on the sign language va-
rieties used in their communities. Generally, native leaders and other
community members have embraced the use of technologies that
would record and preserve their languages, traditions, and cultural
practices for this and future generations—as long as the documentary
materials are treated with respect when made available outside Amer-
ican Indian communities. . . . These documentary materials represent
a legacy of linguistic and cultural information, and also contribute to
language description and revitalization. (173)

The community of scholars interested in the linguistic and cul-

tural study of signed languages and their users should also be grate-
ful to Jeffrey Davis for making this information available and for
showing how linguistic and anthropological methods can be so pro-
ductively applied to it.

References
Stokoe, W. C., D. Casterline, and C. Croneberg. 1965. A Dictionary of Amer-
ican Sign Language on Linguistic Principles. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet
College Press.
West, L. 1960. The Sign Language: An Analysis. Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana
University.