PLEASE NOTE: THE NEW AND IMPROVED HANDTALK SITE MAY BE FOUND HERE:
Welcome to Hand Talk, a collection of and about American Indian Sign Language,
especially Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL). The purpose of this site is to make information about this endangered language
available together in high quality, in some cases for the first time. For more about this site, please visit the
about page.
All varieties of American Indian Sign Language are currently endangered, but prior to
the cultural disruption caused by European colonization, it was commonly used across a large swath of North America from the
Gulf of Mexico to Calgary, Canada, an area of over 1 million square miles. It spread so far because it was used as a
lingua franca between Native American nations speaking at
least 40 different languages, but it was also used within native communities as an alternative to their spoken languages
and as a primary language for deaf people. The current number of signers is unknown, but it is clear that there are still a number
of users across North America, both hearing and deaf.
Please visit the documents section of the site to read more about the history and linguistics of American Indian Sign Language, or the images and video sections to see samples of signing. The original source of these materials is the National Anthropological Archives & National Human Studies Film Archives at the Smithsonian Institution.