EPSCOR: Plains Indian Sign Language: Fieldwork and Digital Archive Project

平原印第安手语：田野调查和数字档案项目历史上，平原印第安手语（PISL）在大平原上的许多美国印第安社区和与该地理区域接壤的文化群体之间发挥了各种社会和话语功能。PISL（也称为手语）属于手语家族，与美国和加拿大聋人社区使用的美国手语（ASL）不同。PISL作为通用语的广泛使用在过去已经急剧下降，部分原因是它被英语取代，在某些情况下被美国手语取代。虽然PISL是一种濒临灭绝的语言，现存的品种和使用者数量不详，但它并没有消失；在一些土著群体中，它仍然用于聋人和听力正常的美国印第安人的传统讲故事、仪式和会话叙述中（例如，黑脚人、乌鸦人、曼丹-希达察人、纳科塔/格罗斯文特人和北夏安人等）。我们迫切需要记录和提供当代PISL语言的语言描述，以及手语语言学家与美国印第安人手语社区的聋人和听力健全的成员合作。在国家科学基金会的支持下，手语语言学家杰弗里·戴维斯博士（田纳西大学）和梅兰妮·麦凯-科迪（切克莫加·切罗基/乔克托族；密苏里州富尔顿威廉伍兹大学）将收集了解和使用PISL语言的美国印第安人的当代手语叙述。研究小组将提供比较语言学分析，并将这些新发现整合到美国印第安人手语文献资料的数字档案中，这些资料以前是与史密森尼国家人类学档案馆合作收集的（得到了2006-2007年DEL NSF/NEH奖学金的支持）。为期一年的实地考察和数字项目将记录PISL的社会语言学现状；阐明其语言性质和结构；制作一份以前未知材料的清单；为各类文献资料和影片提供注释和字幕；在曾经蓬勃发展的土著社区，为振兴PISL做出贡献；让更广泛的受众了解美国印第安人语言和文化遗产中这一重要但经常被忽视的部分。

Plains Indian Sign Language: Fieldwork and Digital Archive ProjectPlains Indian Sign Language (PISL) historically served various social and discourse functions within and between numerous American Indian communities of the Great Plains and cultural groups bordering this geographic area. Classified in the Sign Language family, PISL (also called sign talk) is distinct from American Sign Language (ASL) that is used in Deaf communities of the US and Canada. The use of PISL has dramatically declined from its widespread use as a lingua franca in previous times, due in part to its replacement by English, and ASL in some cases. Although PISL is an endangered language, and the extant number of varieties and users is unknown, it has not vanished; it is still used within some native groups in traditional storytelling, rituals, and conversational narratives by both deaf and hearing American Indians (e.g., Blackfeet, Crow, Mandan-Hidatsa, Nakota/Gros Ventre, and Northern Cheyenne, among others). There is an urgent need to document and provide linguistic descriptions of contemporary PISL varieties, and for sign language linguists to collaborate with deaf and hearing members of American Indian signing communities. With support of the National Science Foundation, sign language linguists Dr. Jeffrey Davis (University of Tennessee) and Melanie McKay-Cody (Chickamauga Cherokee/Choctaw; William Woods University, Fulton, MO) will collect contemporary sign language narratives of American Indians who know and use the PISL variety. The research team will provide comparative linguistic analyses, and integrate these new findings into the digital archive of American Indian sign language documentary materials previously collected in collaboration with the Smithsonian's National Anthropological Archives (with support of a 2006-2007 DEL NSF/NEH fellowship awarded to Davis). The one-year fieldwork and digital project will document the current sociolinguistic status of PISL; illuminate its linguistic nature and structure; produce an inventory of previously unknown materials; provide annotations and captions of various documentary materials and films; contribute to the revitalization of PISL in native communities where it once thrived; and make accessible to broader audiences this important yet often overlooked part of American Indian linguistic and cultural heritage.