Tribal signs endangered (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

August 12, 2010 in City

Tribal signs endangered
Linguists using Montana conference to record, preserve ‘hand talk’

Donna Healy, Billings Gazette
USA

BILLINGS – Loretha (Rising Sun) Grinsell is fluent in a language few people
understand, a language without spoken words.

Grinsell, who is deaf, grew up on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation using
Plains Indian sign language to communicate with her foster grandmother.

She relied exclusively on “hand talk” until she went to school at age 9 and
learned the more commonly used American Sign Language.

She uses the Plains Indian signs, interspersed with ASL, to communicate with
her cousin, James Wooden Legs, who became deaf during a bout with spinal
meningitis as an infant. Like Grinsell, Wooden Legs learned Plains Indian
sign language before he went off to the school.

Today, Grinsell knows about 10 sign-talkers in the Northern Cheyenne Tribe
who are fluent and another 20 who can communicate on a basic level using
sign language.

Access full article below:
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2010/aug/12/tribal-signs-endangered/
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