Sign Language Archaeology: Understanding the Historical Roots of American Sign Language

279 Pages·6.894 MB·

by  Ted Supalla, Patricia Clark

SIGN LANGUAGE ARCHAEOLOGY
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SIGN LANGUAGE
ARCHAEOLOGY
Understanding
the Historical Roots
of American Sign
Language
Ted Supalla and
Patricia Clark
Gallaudet University Press
Washington, DC
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Gallaudet University Press
Washington, DC 20002
http://gupress.gallaudet.edu
© 2015 by Gallaudet University
All rights reserved. Published 2015
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Supalla, Ted.
Sign language archaeology : understanding the historical roots of American sign
language / Ted Supalla, Patricia Clark.
pages cm
Summary: “This study investigates the origins of American Sign Language, its
evolution from French Sign Language, and evidence about the word formation process
of ASL, including data from the 19th and early 20th century dictionaries” as well as the
Gallaudet Lecture Films — Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-56368-493-7 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-56368-494-4 (e-book)
1. American Sign Language—History. I. Title.
HV2474.S96298 2014
419’.7–dc23
2014019343
Front cover: top, George Veditz in “The Preservation of the Sign Language”;
bottom, Amos G. Draper in “The Signing of the Charter of Gallaudet College.”
Both images are from The Preservation of American Sign Language: The Complete
Historical Collection DVD. Used by permission from Sign Media, Inc.
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
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E CONTENTS
Preface vii
1 Seminal Work on “Sign language archaeology” 1
2 Seeking aPProPriate toolS for Studying 14
hiStorical change
3 concePtion of the language Plan 21
4 Who’S Who in the gallaudet lecture 44
film SerieS
5 Seeking hiStorical linkS for an aSl lexicon 80
6 reviSiting dactylology 97
7 reconStructing the hiStory of ideaS about 129
Sign language
8 rediScovering a literary legacy for the 154
deaf american voice
9 fate of the nad language Plan and 174
SubSequent revival of aSl
10 emergent methodology for Sign language 187
etymology
v
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vi CONTENTS
11 develoPment of morPhology unique to aSl 210
12 the imPact of theory and Practice on the 228
deaf community
bibliograPhy 239
index 257
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E PREFACE
F
irst and foremost, we wish to thank our parents for the language and
knowledge they imparted to us. Growing up in the Deaf community pro-
vided both of us a rich heritage. From our childhoods our parents and oth-
ers told stories about where signs came from, which promoted our curiosity
to find out the real story. We also thank all the sign language masters of
the past for ensuring the posterity of American Sign Language (ASL) over
the years. When the opportunity arose to do historical research on the
language, we embarked on a journey of discovery that led to the writing of
this book. Challenges in handling and interpreting the data that we were
amassing led to the development of tools specially fitted to the study of
the films, early dictionaries, and other documents that shed light on the
history of ASL. Without our native language intuitions, the stories, and our
communities, we would not have been able to uncover and interpret the
rich information in the NAD film series, early dictionaries, and historical
documents. As we worked through these challenges and developed these
tools, we began to conceive of our research as akin to an archaeological dig,
unearthing new findings and new revelations about the language and its
predecessor, old French Sign Language. We invite the reader, through this
book, to experience a small part of our journey into the history of ASL.
We also wish to acknowledge research support provided by NSF Re-
search Grant BCS0925073 to Ted Supalla, NIH Research Grant DC00167
vii
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viii PREFACE
to Elissa L. Newport and Ted Supalla, and by an NEH Fellowship Award
to Ted Supalla. We want to thank Betsy Hicks McDonald, Catherine
Chambers, and Elissa Newport for their significant roles in editing this
book and for important discussion of the ideas. We would also like to
thank Don Metlay for building the digital database; Valerie Nelson-Metlay
for drawings of signs; and Guillaume Chastel, Fanny Limousin, and Eric
Lawrin for help in comparing LSF and ASL. Thanks also to Lila Gleitman,
Elissa Newport, Jenny Culberston, Susan Goldin-Meadow, Carol Padden,
John Schuchman, Harlan Lane, Bill Moody, Louie Fant, Jr., and David
Supalla for sharing their insights with us. It was our honor to work with
fifth-generation Deaf community members from Colorado, who shared
with us their experiences of some of the classical sign masters in notable
schools for the Deaf. Thanks to Mike Olsen and Ulf Hedberg of the Gal-
laudet University Archives; Gary Waite of the American School for the Deaf
Archives; Kathy Aguilar of the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind
Archives, the Westchester Historical Society, and the California School for
the Deaf Archives for their assistance in locating historical materials and
making them available to us. Finally thanks to graduate and undergraduate
students at the University of Rochester and Georgetown University for their
assistance with the research project. Credits for the reproduced figures in
the book go to: the National Association of the Deaf; Harper and Row; the
Watson family; the International Visual Theatre, and Harvard University
Press. Special credits to Sign Media, Inc., for allowing us to use images
from The Preservation of American Sign Language: The Complete Historical
Collection DVD.
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SEMINAL WORK ON “SIGN LANGUAGE
1
ARCHAEOLOGY”
I
n this book we investigate the infancy of American Sign Language (ASL),
which, at one time, was called simply “the sign language,” or the “natural
language of signs.” We highlight the major events of the history of ASL,
revealing information that until now has not been clearly understood. In
this chapter we look first at traditional accounts of the inception of sign
language and then move on to look in-depth at the documents that are
the focus of this book, a set of films produced by the National Association
of the Deaf (NAD) between 1910 and 1920. These films, which represent
samples of “sign masters,” the model signers of the time, provide a win-
dow through which we can view previously unknown characteristics of
early ASL and better understand the relationship between the earliest and
modern forms of the language.
We begin with the traditional timeline of the development of ASL
(see figure 1.1), with its roots in eighteenth-century French Sign Language
(Old LSF).
According to most historical accounts, the roots of ASL begin around
1760 with the establishment of the first public school for deaf people
in France by the Abbé Charles Michel de l’Epée.1 By the time Thomas
1. As related by John Burnet in his Tales of the Deaf and Dumb (1835), the
popular anecdote shared at that time was that de l’Epée happened upon two deaf
1
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