{"page":"\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/resources-572d6a42.css\" /\u003e\n\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/lp_boclips_stylesheets-f4d0de30.css\" media=\"all\" /\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-title='The hidden history of “Hand Talk”' data-url='/boclips/videos/6282a3c102ba82288b4858c8' data-video-url='/boclips/videos/6282a3c102ba82288b4858c8' id='bo_player_modal'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='boclips-resource-page modal-dialog panel-container'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='react-notifications-root'\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-header'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-type'\u003e\n\u003ci aria-hidden='true' class='fai fa-regular fa-circle-play'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\nVideo\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch1 class='rp-title' id='video-title'\u003e\nThe hidden history of “Hand Talk”\n\u003c/h1\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-actions'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='mr-1'\u003e\n\u003ca class=\"btn btn-success\" data-posthog-event=\"Signup: LP Signup Activity\" data-posthog-location=\"body_link_boclips\" data-remote=\"true\" href=\"/subscription/new\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGet Free Access\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"\"\u003e for 10 Days\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e!\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-body'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-info'\u003e\n\u003cdiv aria-label='Hide resource details' class='rp-hide-info' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u0026times;\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Expand resource details' class='rp-expand-info fai fa-solid fa-up-right-and-down-left-from-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Compress resource details' class='rp-compress-info fai fa-solid fa-down-left-and-up-right-to-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-rating'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='resource-pool'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-label'\u003ePublisher:\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-name'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='text'\u003e\u003ca data-publisher-id=\"30356011\" href=\"/search?publisher_ids%5B%5D=30356011\"\u003eCurated Video\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-description'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='short-description'\u003eThe hidden history of an ancient language. Subscribe and turn on notifications 🔔 so you don't miss any videos Centuries before we had American Sign Language, Native sign languages, broadly known as “Hand Talk,” were thriving across North...\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='full-description hide'\u003eThe hidden history of an ancient language. Subscribe and turn on notifications 🔔 so you don't miss any \u003ca href='http://goo.gl/0bsAjO' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'\u003evideos\u003c/a\u003e Centuries before we had American Sign Language, Native sign languages, broadly known as “Hand Talk,” were thriving across North America. Hand Talk would be influential in the formation of American Sign Language. But it has largely been written out of history. One of these Hand Talk variations, Plains Indian Sign Language, was used so widely across the Great Plains that it became a lingua franca — a universal language used by both deaf and hearing people to communicate among tribes that didn’t share a common spoken language. At one point, tens of thousands of indigenous people used Plains Indian Sign Language, or PISL, for everything from trade to hunting, conflict, storytelling, and rituals. But by the late 1800s, the federal government had implemented a policy that would change the course of indigenous history forever: a violent boarding school program designed to forcibly assimilate indigenous children into white American culture — a dark history that we’re still learning more about to this day. Because of a forced “English-only” policy, the boarding school era is one of the main reasons we lost so many Native signers — along with the eventual dominance of ASL in schools for the deaf. Today, there are just a handful of fluent PISL signers left in the US. In the piece above we hear from two of these signers who have dedicated their lives to studying and revitalizing the language. They show us PISL in action, and help us explore how this ancient language holds centuries of indigenous history. Note: The headline on this piece has been updated. Previous headline: Before American Sign Language, we had \"Hand Talk\" Read more from Melanie McKay-Cody on the history of Plains Indian Sign \u003ca href='https://shareok.org/handle/11244/319767' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'\u003eLanguage\u003c/a\u003e Check out Lanny Real Bird’s \u003ca href='https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSFVFPZKp14gfMWhA1EzxlQ' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'\u003evideos\u003c/a\u003e Much of the footage of the 1930 Indian Sign Language Council isn’t online, but check out some of it \u003ca href='https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Indian_Sign_Language_Council_(1930).webm' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e Here are some original books we reference on sign \u003ca href='https://archive.org/details/indiansigntalkbe00hadl/page/66/mode/2up' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'\u003etalk\u003c/a\u003e \u003ca href='https://archive.org/details/indiansignlangua00tomk/page/10/mode/2up' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'\u003e\u003c/a\u003e The Smithsonian holds lots of photos and archives on Plains Indian Sign Language like \u003ca href='https://www.si.edu/object/archives/components/sova-naa-photolot-24-ref10318' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'\u003ethis\u003c/a\u003e Sarah Klotz on how Native American boarding schools like Carlisle contributed to the loss of \u003ca href='http://constell8cr.com/issue-2/the-historical-work-of-cultural-rhetorics-constellating-indigenous-deaf-and-english-only-literacies/.' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'\u003ePISL\u003c/a\u003e She references archives that shows how students continued to use sign language like this one from the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource \u003ca href='https://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/publications/school-news-vol-2-no-8' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'\u003eCenter\u003c/a\u003e Have an idea for a story that we should investigate for Missing Chapter? 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