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submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Map of the various sign languages spoken across Turtle Island, excluding Francosign languages. Plains Sign Language is labelled in red as Hand Talk

Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL), also known as Hand Talk, Plains Sign Talk, Plains Sign Language, or First Nation Sign Language, is an endangered sign language common to the majority of Indigenous nations of North America, notably those of the Great Plains, Northeast Woodlands, and the Great Basin. It was, and continues to be, used across what is now central Canada, the central and western United States and northern Mexico. This language was used historically as a lingua franca, notably for international relations, trade, and diplomacy; it is still used for story-telling, oratory, various ceremonies, and by deaf people for ordinary daily use.

In 1885, it was estimated that there were over 110,000 "sign-talking Indians", including Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Sioux, Kiowa, and Arapaho. As a result of the European colonization of the Americas, most notably including American boarding and Canadian residential schools, the number of sign talkers has declined sharply. However, growing interest and preservation work on the language has increased its use and visibility in the 21st century. Historically, some have likened its more formal register, used by men, to Church Latin in function. It is primarily used today by Elders and Deaf citizens of Indigenous nations.

History

Hand Talk's history is intimately associated with both ancient and recent petroglyphs of the continent, however, little is known to academia about Plains Sign Talk's historical antecedents. The earliest records of contact between Europeans and Indigenous peoples of the Gulf Coast region in what is now Texas and northern Mexico note a fully-formed sign language already in use by the time of the Europeans' arrival there. These records include the accounts of Cabeza de Vaca in 1527 and Coronado in 1541.

Signing may have started in the south of North America, perhaps in northern Mexico or Texas, and only spread into the Plains in recent times, though this suspicion may be an artifact of European observation. It is known that there is a complex of Maya sign languages called Meemul Chʼaabʼal or Meemul Tziij in the Kʼicheʼ language, but it is unknown to what extent Meemul Tziij has affected Hand Talk.

The Northwest is home to Plateau Sign Language, which is either a single language or a family of sign languages spoken by the local nations. It is also unknown how associated Plateau Sign Language is with Hand Talk, but it is probable that they are related. Although it is still spoken, especially by the Ktunaxa, the Plateau nations historically shifted to using Chinook Jargon instead

In recent years, the Oneida Nation has taken steps to revive their sign language. Historically, the nations of the Northeast Woodlands, like the Haudenosaunee, spoke a variant of Hand Talk. The Oneida Sign Language Project officially began in 2016, and more signs are being added to this day.

Geography

Sign language use has been documented across speakers of at least 37 spoken languages in twelve families, spread across an area of over 2.6 million square kilometres (1 million square miles). In recent history, it was highly developed among the Crow, Cheyenne, Arapaho and Kiowa, among others, and remains strong among the Crow, Cheyenne and Arapaho.

Melanie R. McKay-Cody, a Cherokee Deaf woman and Hand Talk speaker/researcher, motions that "Plains" Sign Language is actually a family of inter-related languages extending beyond the Great Plains. She breaks down the regional languages as: Northeast Hand Talk (including Oneida Sign Language), Plains Sign Language, Great Basin Sign Language (spoken, for example, by the Ute), and Southwest Hand Talk. She also notes a West Coast language spoken by the Chumash, and she advances the idea that Inuit Sign Language has some relation to this complex of manual North American Indigenous languages. Unmentioned is Coast Salish Sign Language. Within each of these languages, she explains that nations will themselves have specific dialects, such as the Blackfoot.

Southwest Hand Talk is spoken by the Navajo, Hopi, Apache, and Pueblo peoples. However, amongst the Navajo and Keres people, there are two unrelated sign languages also spoken: Keresan Sign Language and, by a Navajo clan with a large number of deaf members, Navajo Family Sign. Likewise, Plateau Sign Language may or may not be related to Hand Talk.

The hidden history of “Hand Talk”

reminders:

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[-] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago

Apparently shit was popping off in Los Angeles today. ICE was doing raids all over the city. I've seen some clips. There were flash bangs, someone almost run over by a car. I know they did stuff in Chicago and Denver before. They just attacking one city at a time to do this stuff?

It's awful but it also seems to be causing quite the backlash. Hope it at least radicalize some people to join an organization.

[-] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago

New Megathread nerds!

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by zay

Nerd Call@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

@[email protected]

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No current struggle session discussion here on the new general megathread, i will ban you from the comm and remove your comment, have a good day/night :meow-coffee:

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[-] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Apparently its wrong to attack the leader of a mafia that extorts medication for the sick and disabled, and the supporters of a genocidal regime. Guess I took the wrong message from those superhero movies this country financed.

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[-] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago

I d/l'd and opened the pdf for Trans Liberation, and adobe acrobat gave me this message at the top

"Don't bother yourself with reading a book, just let the racism machine spit out vaguely related words at you" lenin-rage

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[-] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago

My gf's dad keeps talking about me bagging my grass when i mow, like, "oh your grass is getting kinda tall, might wanna bag it up" and im pretty sure the man just wants my grass for himself. Ive never mowed the yard without blowing grass all over and it's been fine, the grass just goes back into the yard yknow. This guy wants my grass to compost and that sounds like STEALING NUTRIENTS FROM MY YARD TO ME

[-] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Between walking my dog every day and now going to the gym 5-6 times a week, nobody can tell me I live a sedentary lifestyle anymore. catgirl-happy

[-] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago

heya all! I took a year long break from this website for health reasons - migraines, not even once. the ketamine they gave me to break them was kinda fun though.

anyone wanna hit me with the highlights? any other lemmys implode from interacting with us? struggle sessions? funny threads? hit me with them!

Care-Comrade

[-] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

We almost lost the domain to some crypto guys but then it turns out everything is fine

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[-] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago

My cat doing owl-pissed

[-] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

Took a peek at Twitter. I saw a lot of self-proclaimed leftists acting like the conservative strawman of liberals. I hurry back to Hexbear.

[-] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

Like, writing 5 full length replies about oppression in response to a guy's 5 word tweet (correctly) correcting a word. Or talking about how misgendering is more important than Gaza.

The worst thing though was when a bunch of "communists" replied to a right-wingers tweet about the USSR with agreement.

I can get Slammer's memes from the blog, so the only account I was mildly interested in is aldanmarki, who is suspended. Trying to look beyond that was a mistake.

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[-] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

Just remembered Joe Biden and the Dilbert guy have cancer lol

[-] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

Lathe: if Zohran pulls off the primary you WILL see lib media like NYT or CNN post articles like

“The progressive case to vote Republican. Just this once.” or some shit.

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[-] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

This is what the Kkkore WorldSS truly fear

tweet

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[-] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

Love you all. Goodnight. Tomorrow we start building communism. Rest up, big day ahead.

[-] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

bloomer Cuomo might not win the ranked choice ballot in New York

[-] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

That feeling when a family member you respected says something racist about immigration and all that respect dies in an instant

desolate

[-] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

My Spanish is not very good. A middle adult age mexican coupple is moving into the appartmnet in the building here. I helped them carry their oversized heavy ass folding couch up a few flights of stairs and get it in their unit. Then I gave them some beers. It is what marx would have wanted

[-] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

contrapoints is posting through people reminding her of that time she did a show with a war criminal.

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[-] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

BOY I SURE AM GLAD MY GF BOUGHT A FUCKING ELECTRIC LAWNMOWER THAT CAN'T MOW THE WHOLE FUCKING YARD BEFORE BOTH BATTERIES DIE, I LOVE STANDING AROUND DRENCHED IN SWEAT WITH MY DICK IN MY HAND WAITING FOR A BATTERY TO CHARGE BEFORE I CAN FUCKING TAKE A SHOWER

[-] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

You gotta get one that runs on an extension cord so you can mow the cord.

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[-] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

https://red.ngn.tf/comments/1l3sq27/_/mw6zcw9

I almost want to chuckle at these moderate Herzlians sloooowly realizing that the war on Gaza is not only a waste of time but a horrible atrocity.

the longer this has gone on, the worse and less defensible everything has gotten.

A pro-pally will accuse Israel of genocide now. I'll ask why they think that. Then they'll pull up an interview of a Likkud member saying that "palestinian babies are enemies", and then another of IDF soldiers making light of flattening a neighborhood, and like... I can't make a rebuttal to that because, yeah, it is genuinely fucking heinous. Then I see more reports of more civilians dead, and more reporters killed. And now they are threatening a flotilla bringing in humanitarian supplies?

The time to be outraged is far past due now, buckos. There were plenty of hints yesteryear and the year before that one that this was going to be an extermination campaign, but you preferred to bury your heads in the sand and deploy the usual Herzlian talking points (e.g. ‘Hamas uses human shields’).

If you still aren’t going to reexamine either Zionism or the alternatives thereto then I am just going to laugh when I see you infighting.

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[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

Apparently one GameStop store used a stapler to attach receipts to Switch 2 boxes and the staple ruined the screen...another person commented their unit and others were affected at the same store

its funny how companies now do bad packaging just to give an "opening experience" to the buyer

[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

I heard an interview with a guy who's spent like a decade working with a bunch of different companies to reduce wasteful designs and single use plastics in packaging. Then he watched it all evaporate as iPhone unboxing videos took off.

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[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

When your bladder is full, nothing quite beats a good piss! (This post has been brought to you by the European Urination Advocay Board)

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[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

Elon saying “Trump wouldn’t have won without me” has been interpreted by the libs to mean he’s admitted to rigging the election.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago
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[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

storm's a brewin'

[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

Did you know? They're reforming the Dawnguard.

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[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago
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[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Every morning i say hello to my roomba, The Goon, in a way that makes me sound like Strongbad

Good morning The Goon! I hope you have a good day edging around the house. Do a good job The Goon or no electricity for YOU

[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

Dog sitting at my parents' instead of being able to do Pride stuff. If I had queer friends they might wonder where I am.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

There is no order to the stages of grief

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[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

Everyone who goes bouldering also plays Baldur's Gate and Stardew Valley and Minecraft and is very likely to be queer. I do not know why

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[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

When I was 12 or 13 I used BBS's, which was like a proto-internet kind of thing where your computer would dial in to other people's computers. They had games, message boards and file downloads.

Anyway, I met this guy who lived in my town through one of these. His handle was "Violator". I asked my mom to bring me to his house to hang out. She drove me, a teenager, to where this 35 year old man lived in an RV behind his parents house.

I was not molested, but looking back on it, I cannot believe my mother let me go.

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[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

Not like us maybe starts off a little strong by calling drake a pedo repeatedly because the rest of the insults don’t hit quite as hard after. Like oh you’re also a pussy and not particularly masculine doesn’t seem that bad at that point.

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[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I sense a shift in Bluesky in just the last few hours. I said I Newsom shouldn't have rolled over and he needed to do something. A lib actually had the gall to tell me "What do you want Newsom to do?" I hate that argument at Reddit because talking more is most likely pointless. At Bluesky the character limit is so low that the "what do you want" gibe is the lib working hard to nuke the convo from orbit.

It was pointless but I said I wasn't a lawyer but of course Newsom could sue, delay, etc. No replies yet. And I assume I won't get any.

---

Edit

I was wrong. The lib made a couple thoughtful replies and said he wasn't a lawyer either. But he's trying to get me to wade into this shit.

It's not the california guard, it's the national guard of california. it is under the control of the state adjutant general...

I have no idea what the "state adjutant general" is. And I'll be fucked if I'm going to learn. Oh, well. That convo is over.

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[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

🙏🙏🙏

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Imagine living in a world in which everything that exists isn't constantly and relentlessly squeezed for ever growing profit.

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[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

I can't believe that we as a society just let the nft bros walk free. You should get a phone notification with exactly how much they paid for a picture of a monkey every time you talk to them.

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[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Anyone down to do some phallocentric communication later today?

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago
[-] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

They love blaming dissent on outside agitators.

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[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

The Hooters discussion today reminded me of this little gem. Maybe not worksafe, but not for the reasons you'd think. Just some next level irony and dark humor.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

My cat still hasn't peed

He has been very lethargic all day. I am not sure if it's the muscle relaxants or if he is in pain/obstructed again.

If I take him back to ER they will want to admit him and I can't pay 5k. When I tell them that they will kill him.

All I can do is pump him full of fluids and hope that he pees. Come on buddy please pee

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Ok he is in his litter box. He is having a very hard time.

I'm sure he is scared and in pain from the catheter. Come on pal you can do it

[-] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

Oh my God he peed

He had a REALLY hard time. And it was a tiny amount. But he peed.

Very much not out of the woods but a massively positive sign. If he pulls through this I'm getting his ass pet insurance

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this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
97 points (99.0% liked)

chapotraphouse

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