Documentation, Codification & Preservation of Indigenous Sign Languages
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Our Focus
Documentation; Advocacy & Outreach; Education
01. Documentation
Our indigenous signing systems are part of our communicative and linguistic heritage. Indigenous Hands provides a comprehensive collection of signs and phrases from a diverse range of ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. Since 2017, our indigenous sign language documentation project has collated hundreds of signs from over 12 communities. Check out our collection of signs and phrases to start learning today!
02. Advocacy & Outreach
Indigenous Hands conducts various advocacy and outreach programmes in tandem our sister organisation, Save the Deaf and Endangered Languages Initiative (S-DELI). From community service outreach projects in Deaf schools to preventing the domestic and sexual abuse of girls and women, we are committed to protecting and empowering members of the amazing communities we work with.
03. Education
Our work advocates that deaf children should be educated through the sign language of their immediate environment. Our research has revealed that too many deaf children are growing up without access to language until they start school. Here they are often taught foreign or monolingual systems. We seek to protect the human rights of these children by providing them with early access to sign language and education through their native sign languages.
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Lexical Signs
Numerical Signs
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iHands is available on the web and available to download for Android and Apple devices now. Access our sign collection, catch up on our blog or complete your course modules- all on the go!
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Research
Research There is a need for more global action towards the protection and revitalisation of indigenous sign languages. Our research findings revealed some of the greatest challenges for indigenous deaf communities include (1) communication gaps between deaf children and their families, (2) poor cognitive and linguistic skills development amongst the deaf in isolated communities in Africa and (3) critical endangerment of indigenous sign languages.
Purpose
Our indigenous signing systems are part of our communicative and linguistic heritage. Platforms like Indigenous Hands Sign App are catalysts in preserving our indigenous sign languages and promoting early linguistic and cognitive skills for deaf children. The Indigenous Hands Sign Language App promotes early sign language access in communities where more developed and/or foreign sign languages have dominated Deaf education and where Deaf children grow up with little or no access to sign language until they start school.
Learning
Indigenous Hands provides a comprehensive collection of signs and phrases from diverse indigenous communities. The platform documents our indigenous languages, promotes sign language education and supports early cognitive and linguistic skills. We provide exclusive access to bespoke sign language learning courses, carefully designed for even the most beginner learners.
Meet Our Sign Language Consultants
Introducing our amazing team of sign language consultants aka Team My Hero Is You! Even as the coronavirus pandemic presented a new way of life in 2020, we were determined to keep the project running. We established a team for a project titled 'My Hero is You' – a team of bilingual signers selected from various local deaf communities in Nigeria. They were primarily tasked with translating the story 'My Hero is You' into indigenous Nigerian sign languages. 'My Hero is You' is a story that was first published during the peak of the pandemic to teach children how to be heroes in fighting the coronavirus for their communities. After completing their initial project (video available on our YouTube channel!), the team’s assignment was expanded to manage several other initiatives and translation projects. You can see examples of the team’s incredible work through the Indigenous Hands App!
Maurice
Specialty: Sign Language Consultant
Dave Paul
Specialty: Sign Language Consultant
Joshua Gyang
Specialty: Sign Language Consultant
Ifeanyi
Specialty: Sign Language Consultant
This is not your conventional sign language app, this is Indigenous Hands SignApp, a mobile and web-based pedagogy for all indigenous and endangered signing communications. Indigenous Hands was born out of the need to bridge the communication gap between deaf children and their families and to create early sign language access for deaf children born in isolated deaf communities. Across societies, deaf children are born in hearing families, others become deaf in infant age when language has hardly been formed.
Indigenous Hands (I-Hands) SignApp is a pedagogical system for minority, and indigenous signed languages of our immediate environment. The system is divided into different lessons, each lesson representing different categories with subcategories.
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