[lg policy] Hawaii Sign Language found to be distinct language from ASL

[Harold Schiffman]

Hawaii Sign Language found to be distinct language
By AUDREY McAVOY | Associated Press – Fri, Mar 1, 2013

   HONOLULU (AP) — Linguists say they have determined that a unique
sign language, possibly dating back to the 1800s or earlier, is being
used in Hawaii, marking the first time in 80 years a previously
unknown language — spoken or signed — has been documented in the U.S.
Researchers will formally announce their findings this weekend showing
it's not a dialect of American Sign Language, as many long believed,
but an unrelated language with unique vocabulary and grammar.

Only about 40 people, most in their 80s, are known to currently use
Hawaii Sign Language, meaning the discovery comes just as the language
is on the cusp of disappearing.

"I think that everyone in the room is aware of how Hawaiian, the
indigenous language of this state, has been brought back from the
brink of extinction," William O'Grady, linguistics professor at the
University of Hawaii, said at a news conference. "But what we didn't
know until very recently is that Hawaii is home to a second highly
endangered language that is found nowhere else in the world."

Researchers said they interviewed and videotaped 21 users of Hawaii
Sign Language — 19 elderly deaf people and two adult children of deaf
parents — for their study.

They documented how Hawaii and American sign languages have different
grammar. In Hawaii Sign Language, adjectives come after nouns, like
"dog black" instead of "black dog" in American Sign Language.

They found words for father, mother, dog and pig are all different in
Hawaii and American sign languages. In fact, only 20 words on a list
of 100 key words are significantly similar in both languages.

"It's clearly a separate language and it clearly developed
independently," said James Woodward, a University of Hawaii, Manoa,
linguistics adjunct professor and co-director of the Center for Sign
Linguistics and Deaf Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Languages are considered dialects when they share more than 80 percent
of the words on the list, said Woodward who has documented distinct
sign languages in Thailand, Vietnam and other parts of Asia.

Languages are considered related if 36 to 80 percent of the words on
the list are significantly similar.

Four scholars involved in the research plan to present their study at
the 3rd International Conference on Language Documentation and
Conservation in Honolulu on Sunday.

Academics became aware of Hawaii Sign Language's unique
characteristics because of Linda Lambrecht, an American Sign Language
instructor at Kapiolani Community College in Honolulu.

She grew up learning Hawaii Sign Language from her brothers, and it
was her first language.

But at school she was taught to use American Sign Language, which
entered Hawaii in the 1940s and became the dominant sign language in
the islands by the 1950s.

She held on to her first language regardless, and used both. Later in
life, she began approaching other scholars about researching it.

The attention it's now receiving helps her look past the lack of
interest people paid to it before.

"It will be recognized in addition to the sign languages of other
countries, and that itself makes me so proud that I don't feel that
frustrated," Lambrecht said through an interpreter.

O'Grady said Hawaii Sign Language is the first previously unknown
language to be documented in the United States since the 1930s, when
scholars identified the South Central Alaska spoken language of Eyak
as unique.

Sign language was used in Hawaii in the 19th century, if not earlier.
The first known written reference to sign language in the islands is
in an 1821 letter from Protestant missionary Hiram Bingham to his
friend Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, said Barbara Earth, a University of
Hawaii, Manoa, adjunct assistant professor and Gallaudet University
research fellow. Gallaudet co-founded one of the first deaf schools in
the U.S.

Hawaii Sign Language is used by people of many ethnicities, not only
Native Hawaiians. It may be influenced by sign language used by Native
Hawaiians and immigrants to Hawaii, though research needs to be done
on this, Earth said. It's not related to spoken Hawaiian, nor is it
related to any other sign language scholars are aware of, Woodward
said.

Researchers plan to publish three Hawaii Sign Language textbooks and a
dictionary to help keep the language alive. They also plan to publish
their findings in academic journals.


http://news.yahoo.com/hawaii-sign-language-found-distinct-language-182356712.html

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