AY Honors/Aboriginal Lore/Answer Key

Many Australian Aboriginal cultures have or traditionally had a sign language counterpart to their spoken language. This appears to be connected with various taboos on speech between certain people within the community or at particular times, such as during a mourning period for women or during initiation ceremonies for men - unlike indigenous sign languages elsewhere which are used as a lingua franca (Plains Indians sign language), or due to a high incidence of heriditary deafness in the community (Yucatec Maya Sign Language, Adamorobe Sign Language and Kala Kotok).

Sign languages occur in the southern, central, and western desert regions, coastal Arnhem Land, some islands of north coast, the western side of Cape York Peninsula, and on some Torres Strait Islands. Sign languages may have occurred all over Australia - they have been noted as far south as the south coast (Jaralde Sign Language), but many of these sign languages (as with many of the spoken languages of Australia), are now extinct.

Reports on the status of deaf members of such Aboriginal communities differ, with some writers lauding the inclusion on deaf people in mainstream cultural life, while others indicate that deaf people don't learn the sign language and, like other deaf people isolated in hearing cultures, develop a simple system of home sign to communicate with their immediate family. However, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dialect of Auslan exists in Far North Queensland (extending from Yarrabah to Cape York), which is heavily influenced by the indigenous community sign languages and gestural systems of the region.

Australian indigenous sign languages in north Queensland were noted as early as 1908 (Roth). Early research into indigenous sign was done by the American linguist La Mont West, and later, in more depth, by English linguist Adam Kendon.

List of Aboriginal sign languages

Note that most Aboringal langauages have multiple possible spellings, eg. Warlpiri is also known as Walpiri, Walbiri, Elpira, Ilpara, Wailbri

• Aranda Sign Language
• Dieri Sign Language
• Djingili Sign Language
• Jaralde Sign Language
• Kaititj: Akitiri Sign Language
• Manjiljarra Sign Language
• Mudbura Sign Language
• Murngin Sign Language
• Ngada Sign Language
• Torres Strait Islander Sign Language
• Warlpiri Sign Language
• Warumungu [or Warramunga] Sign Language
• Western Desert Sign Language (Yurira Watjalku)
• Worora Kinship Sign Language

See also

• Australian Aboriginal languages
• Auxiliary Sign Languages

References

General

• Kwek, Joan / Kendon, Adam (1991). Occasions for sign use in an Australian aboriginal community. (with introduction note by Adam Kendon). In: Sign Language Studies 20: 71 (1991) - pp. 143-160
• Kendon, A. (1988) Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xviii+ 542. (Presents the results of the research on Australian Aboriginal sign languages that the author began in 1978. The book was awarded the 1990 Stanner Prize, a biennial award given by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander Studies, Canberra, Australia. Reviews include: Times Literary Supplement, August 25-31 1989; American Anthropologist 1990, 92: 250-251; Language in Society, 1991, 20: 652-659; Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 1990, 35(1): 85-86)
• Roth, W.E (1908), Miscellaneous Papers, Australian Trustees of the Australian Museum. Sydney.
• O'Reilly, S. (2005). Indigenous Sign Language and Culture; the interpreting and access needs of Deaf poeple who are of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander in Far North Queensland. Sponsored by ASLIA, the Australian Sign Language Interpreters Association.

Warlpiri sign language:

• Meggitt M.J. (1954). Sign language among the Warlpiri of Central Australia. Oceania, 25(1), p. 2-16.
• Wright, C.D. (1980). Walpiri Hand Talk: An Illustrated Dictionary of Hand Signs used by the Walpiri People of Central Australia. Darwin: N.T. Department of Education.
• Kendon, A. (1980). The sign language of the women of Yuendumu: A preliminary report on the structure of Warlpiri sign language. Sign Language Studies, 1980 27, 101-112.
• Kendon, A. (1984). Knowledge of sign language in an Australian Aboriginal community. Journal of Anthropological Research. 1984 40, 556-576.
• Kendon A. (1985). Iconicity in Warlpiri Sign language. In Bouissac P., Herzfeld M. & Posner R. (eds), Inconicity: Essay on the Nature of Culture. TÅbingen: Stauffenburger Verlag. In press, p. .
• Kendon, A. (1985). Variation in Central Australian Aboriginal Sign language: A preliminary report. Language in Central Australia, 1(4): 1-11.
• Kendon, A. (1987) Simultaneous Speaking and Signing in Warlpiri Sign language Users. Multilingua 1987, 6: 25-68.
• Kendon A. (1988). Parallels and divergences between Warlpiri sign language and spoken Warlpiri: analyses of signed and spoken discourses. Oceania, 58, p. 239-54.

Original researchers' notes archived at the IATSIS library:

• Hale, Ken (c1960s), Original handwritten lexical list, 3pp.; notes on ‘Kaititj: akitiri sign language’, 3pp. in IATSIS library, MS 4114 Miscellaneous Australian notes of Kenneth L. Hale, Series 2 Barkly Tablelands language material, item 1-2 Wampaya [Wambaya (C19)].
• West, La Mont (Monty), (1963-66), original field report and papers ‘Sign language’ and ‘Spoken language’, and vocab cards, Items 1-2 in IATSIS library, MS 4114 Miscellaneous Australian notes of Kenneth L. Hale, Series 7: Miscellaneous material, Items 1-3 Correspondence 1963-1966

From "Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press:"

• Strehlow, Carl (1978).The sign language of the Aranda, in Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press, v.2, p.349-370.
• Roth, Walter E. (1978). The expression of ideas by manual signs: a sign-language, in Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press, v.2, p.273-301.
• Berndt, R.M. (1940). Notes on the sign-language of the Jaralde tribe of the Lower River Murray, South Australia, in Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press, v.2, p.397-402.
• Warner, W. Lloyd (1978). "Murngin Sign Language," in Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press, v.2, p.389-392.
• Mountford, C.P. (1978). Gesture language of the Ngada tribe of the Warburton Ranges, Western Australia, in Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press, v.2, p.393-396.
• Meggit, Mervyn (1978). Sign language among the Walbiri of Central Australia, in Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press, v.2, p.409-423.
• Miller, Wick R. (1978). A report on the sign language of the Western Desert (Australia), in Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press, v.2, p.435-440.
• Love, J.R.B. (1941). Worora kinship gestures, in Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press, v.2, p.403-405.