Cree hand signals homepage

[Nobukatsu Minoura]

Dear Liland and all,

on 4/24/02 1:22 AM, Liland Brajant Ros' at lilandbr at HOTMAIL.COM wrote:
> PS Unfortunately I have no idea what the answers to your questions are. It's
> not listed under Canada in the Ethnologue, either.

It was only after I posted the last message to this list that I looked at
all the movie files of the signs.  The so-called "Cree signs" seem to be
more than 95% identical with ASL.  I do not know if it's used by hearing
Crees or by deaf Crees, but as far as the small on-line lexicon is
concerned, it's safe to assume that the "Cree Sign Language" is actually
just a dialect of ASL.  If it is a descendant of a native sign language, it
has been heavily influenced by ASL, which is the most widely used sign
language of Canada.  (Ethnologue's claim that Canada has Canadian Sign
Language is not supported by any sign language linguists at present.  It is
just a variation of ASL.  On the other hand Langue des Signes Quebecoise =
LSQ is a distinct language used in the Francophone areas of Canada.)

I wonder if the "users" of the "Cree signs" think that they use an
indigenous sign language.  I doubt it though.

I just started a discussion on SLLING-L (sign language linguistics mailing
list).  If there are any substantial feedbacks, I will get back to you guys
with them.

Nobukatsu Minoura
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
minoura at tufs.ac.jp