| Hawaiʻi Sign Language | |
|---|---|
| Hoailona ʻŌlelo o Hawaiʻi | |
| Native to | United States |
| Region | Hawaii |
Native speakers | 40 (2019)[1] Moribund; a few elderly signers arebilingual with the dominantASL. It may be that all speak mixed HSL/ASL,a.k.a. Creolized Hawai‘i Sign Language (CHSL).[2][1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | hps |
| Glottolog | hawa1235 |
| ELP | Hawai'i Sign Language |
Hawaiʻi Sign Language orHawaiian Sign Language (HSL;Hawaiian:Hoailona ʻŌlelo o Hawaiʻi), also known asHoailona ʻŌlelo,Old Hawaiʻi Sign Language andHawaiʻi Pidgin Sign Language,[2] is an indigenoussign language native toHawaiʻi. Historical records document its presence on the islands as early as the 1820s, but HSL was not formally recognized by linguists until 2013.[3]
Although previously believed to be related toAmerican Sign Language (ASL),[4] the two languages are unrelated.[5][6] In 2013, HSL was used by around 40 people, mostly over 80 years old.[7] An HSL–ASL creole, Creole Hawaiʻi Sign Language (CHSL), is used by approximately 40 individuals in the generations between those who signed HSL exclusively and those who sign ASL exclusively.[8] Since the 1940s, ASL has almost fully replaced the use of HSL on the islands of Hawaiʻi[9] and CHSL is likely to also be lost in the next 50 years.[8] HSL is consideredcritically endangered.[2]
Although HSL is not itself apidgin,[10] it is commonly known as Hawaiʻi Pidgin Sign Language or Pidgin Sign Language due to its historical association withHawaiʻi Pidgin. Linguists who have begun to document the language and community members prefer the nameHawaiʻi Sign Language,[6][5] and that is the name used for it inISO 639-3 as of 2014.[11]
Village sign use, by both Deaf and hearing, is attested from 1820. There is the possibility of influence from immigrant sign later that century, though HSL has little in common today with ASL or other signed and spoken languages it has come in contact with. The establishment of a school for the deaf in 1914 strengthened the use of sign, primarily HSL, among the students. A Chinese-Hawaiian Deaf man named Edwin Inn taught HSL to other d/Deaf adults and also stood as president of a Deaf club.[12] However, the introduction of ASL in 1941 in place of purely oral instruction resulted in a shift from HSL.
HSL was recognized by linguists on March 1, 2013, by a research group from theUniversity of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. The research team found a letter fromReverend Hiram Bingham toReverend Thomas H. Gallaudet from Feb. 23, 1821. The letter described several instances of deafKānaka Maoli communicating to Bingham in their own sign language.[5] The initial research team interviewed 19 Deaf people and two children of Deaf parents on four islands.[13] Eighty percent of HSL vocabulary is different fromAmerican Sign Language.[14]
Some reports on HSL claimed it to be "the first new language to be uncovered within theUnited States since the 1930s,"[9] or that it may be the "last undiscovered language in the country."[15]
Prior to 2013, HSL was largely undocumented.[16] HSL is at risk ofbecoming dormant[17][18][19] due to its low number of signers and the adoption ofASL.[12]
HSL shares few lexical and grammatical components with ASL.[6][5][3][20][21] While HSL follows subject, object, verb (SOV) typology, ASL follows subject, verb, object (SVO) typology.[22][23] HSL does not have verbal classifiers – these were previously thought to be universal in sign languages, and ASL makes extensive use of these.[24] HSL also has several entirely non-manual lexical items, including verbs and nouns, which are not typical in ASL.[14]
An estimated 15,857 of the total 833,610 residents of Hawaiʻi (1.9%) are audiologicallydeaf.[25] Among this population, ASL is now significantly more common than HSL. There are a handful of services available to help d/Deaf Hawaiian residents learn ASL and also for those who wish to learn ASL to become interpreters, such as the Aloha State Association of the Deaf and the American Sign Language Interpreter Education Program.[26] Equivalent services for HSL are nearly non-existent, partially because some members of the Deaf community in Hawaiʻi have felt that it is not worth preservation.[20]
Researchers at the Sign Language Documentation Training Center and theUniversity of Hawaiʻi have begun projects to document HSL. Their first goal is to teach graduate students and other linguists how to document HSL and other small sign languages used in Hawaiʻi.[27] Their second goal is to have 20 hours of translated HSL on video.[16][28] As of 2016, a dictionary and video archive of speakers had been created.[20]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)State ofHawaii | |
|---|---|
Honolulu (capital) | |
| Topics | |
| Society | |
| Main islands | |
| Northwestern Islands | |
| Notable communities | |
| Counties | |
| Pre-statehood history | |
| Official languages | |
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| Pidgins andCreole languages | |
| Sign languages | |
