Dolman, David (1986) ‘Sign languages in Jamaica,’ Sign Language Studies 52(fall):235-42.

[p. 235] Two different sign languages are in use by deaf people on the English-speaking island of Jamaica. One of these is plainly similar in its signs (and in their pairing with English word glosses) to the varieties of signing used in the United States. Quite different from this urban Jamaican sign language is that known locally in Saint Elizabeth's parish as "country sign language."

The urban sign language is used throughout the island in the schools, in platform and television interpreting, and among most members of Jamaica's deaf community. Country sign language is used by perhaps 200 deaf people living within a few miles of each other on an isolated part of the island. Although the users of the urban and the country sign language are aware of the existence of the other kind, only about ten persons on the island have fluency in both.

In Kingston, the nation's capital and largest city, a scene occurs every Thursday evening that would be familiar to anyone who has attended a deaf club in the United States. A group of 40 or 50 people, members of the Kingston Club for the Deaf, get together for an evening of eating, laughing, gossiping, and information sharing. The communication system they use reflects the American influence on education of the deaf on the island. As in the United States, oralism prevailed until the early 1970s, when total communication was embraced. In both countries one finds a continuum or mixing of more English-like signing and less English-like signing. The more English-like variety – especially initialized [p. 236] signs and signs for English inflectional endings – are commonly used in the schools but a much less English-like form of signing among the deaf adults. The adult version contains some signs peculiar to Jamaica which probably were current before the introduction of the educational sign systems associated with total communication. Nevertheless, the adult version of the urban sign language bears many resemblances to ASL in its use of space, movement, and facial expression; it is understood, with minor clarification, by most deaf adults who visit the island from the United States.

Country sign language is an entirely different story. Its users live about 70 miles west of Kingston in Saint Elizabeth parish, near the villages of Junction and Top Hill. No causes of the high incidence of deafness in this area are know, but the deaf people there are accepted members of the larger community and live similarly to their hearing neighbors, tilling an acre or two of land, tending a few animals, and doing occasional odd jobs when opportunities arise. As coordinator for the past year of a deaf education teacher-training program in Kingston, I have had the opportunity to act as consultant to a privately funded two-classroom school for the deaf that has served this community since the 1970s. In the process I have become acquainted with members of the Saint Elizabeth deaf community and their sign language.

My interpreter has been a deaf man who, like a handful of other adults, has benefited from formal education outside of Saint Elizabeth. Able to communicate in both urban and country sign language, he served both as chief informant and link to other members of the rural deaf community.

One of the more interesting aspects of country sign language is the use of name signs. No fingerspelling [p. 237] alphabet exists, and most of the members of the community are illiterate and unaware of their "hearing" or legal names. One woman told me that as a young girl her name sign related to her long straight hair. After an operation her name sign became a slash across the stomach to indicate a scar. Her current identification sign, a reference to her one remaining tooth, will presumably change again as nature takes its course. When I asked her what "hearing" name she had been given she shrugged and told me to ask the hearing people who lived near by.

Names in the community generally seem to be based on physical characteristics. My informant's country name is a combination of signs for 'eyeglasses' and 'drive', because he is the only member of the community with a driver's license. Because of her complexion and build, his wife is signed 'white' plus 'fat'. One man is identified by drawing one's hand quickly toward the body, a reference to his greedy, selfish nature. Hunchbacks, goiters, missing eyes, and other physical deformities are the basis for name signs for other members of the community. According to my informant, three people in the community are signed 'black', though with varying degrees of intensity to indicate relative shade.

Counting in the country sign language begins with fingers of the dominant hand for 1 through 5 (3 is signed with the ASL 'W' hand) and adds fingers of the Other hand for 6 through 10.1 For 11, one claps once and signs 1, for 20 the clap is repeated, and so on up to 49. A right-handed signer signs 50 by slicing the left arm with the right hand; 60 is the same with an added hand clap. Rule-governed signs also exist for half, hundred, and thousand, although reportedly there is no sign for one million.

[p. 238] As in the urban sign language time of day is expressed with reference to the sun. 'Day' is signed by making an arc from east to west. For 'morning' one points east and follows the movement of the sun; 'noon' entails pointing upward. for 'tomorrow' one makes a sign similar to ASL BED and add a country sign meaning 'future.' The idea of two days hence is signed similarly but BED is repeated and then the future sign added. 'Yesterday' uses the BED-like sign and a sign for past.

Days of the week all have iconic (though not transparent) references. Sunday is the day that the Bible is read: the sign resembles the act of reading a book. When a '1' is added the sign phrase means 'week.' Monday is the day after Sunday and so one turns a page in the represented Bible. Tuesday is jail day and its sign resembles SLAVE in ASL. Wednesday is marriage day and is signed by slipping an imaginary ring onto one's finger. Thursday is hospital visiting day; its sign mimics a shot in the arm. Friday, slaughtering day, is signed by pointing to the throat. Saturday is fishing day and its sign is made by the index finger miming a squirming fish.

Country sign language seems not to make reference to specific months. Christmas is indicated by pointing to the stars (or the star of Bethlehem). For Easter the hands are spread in the shape of a cross. School closing time is signed by the sign for school (motion of writing and shaking the pen) plus a sign like AWAY in ASL.

As would be expected, most of the signs relate to the more important aspects of this community's life. There are signs for the animals of the area and for pimento, yam, cassava, mango, cornmeal, and rice. It seems that no sign exists for Jamaica, a term with little meaning for a people to whom Kingston is merely an abstract concept. Their sign for Kingston, with a [p. 239] population of more than half a million, is nearly identical to that for Southfield, a village of two thousand inhabitants a few miles down the road. Both entail pulling at one's shirt (since clothing is sold in both places) and pointing in the direction of the town. In a similar fashion, Montego Bay and the United States are signed almost identically; for both one makes the country signs for 'white' (as applied to people) and 'airplane' and points. For Montego Bay, however, the pointing arc is short; for America, the arc is extended. To many in Saint Elizabeth parish, America means migrant work; thus it can also be signed as 'Florida' and 'farm' are signed: by making the motion of chopping cane.

Facial expressions, non-lexical gestures, and pantomime appear to play a greater role in country sign language than in urban. Emotions – happiness, sadness, embarrassment, and shame – are physically portrayed rather than signed. This of course presents problems when expressing more complex or subtle qualities like hope, frustration, or uneasiness. Reportedly there are no signs for coordinating conjunctions or even for some common colors; blue and green are indicated by pointing to something blue or green in the vicinity – a feat easier to accomplish in rural Jamaica than in most of North America.

When hearing people unacquainted with sign language view both the urban and the country signing of Jamaica, they often comment that country sign is easier to understand. Of the several hundred country signs that I have collected, only a few have no known iconic reference. As Wilbur points out, however, the fact that a sign is iconic does not mean that it will necessarily be understood by the uninformed observer (1979: 151-156). It is highly unlikely, for example, that a person with no knowledge of country sign would see a [p. 240] person touching his throat and recognize that the signer was referring to Friday.

According to my informant, the deaf people do not give hearing people name signs but refer to them by sign-naming their deaf parent or sibling and adding the sign for the relationship; e.g. "one-tooth sister." A sign for height or other distinguishing characteristic may then be added to sharpen the reference. Nevertheless, deaf people there seem to be well-integrated into the larger community, and in the immediate area the attitude of hearing people toward their deaf neighbors is one of acceptance, not pity or condescension. A small one-room store serves the rural community, and even the hearing people who shop there know country sign language in a rudimentary way.

In a conversation one afternoon in a deaf farmer's home I was struck by the number of communication systems represented. The farmer used country sign language, easily understood by his hearing daughter and my deaf bilingual informant. Her daughter and I could communicate in spoken English, although she was more comfortable using the Jamaican patois that I have not mastered. Unlike my informant and me, the daughter and her father had no understanding of the urban sign language, and in addition, the father and the informant understood no speech. In spite of this post-Babel-Tower diversity we managed to communicate; the farmer proudly explained the state of his crops and livestock and related how much he enjoyed feeding and caring for the birds on his property.

One cannot help contrasting the gentle life style of the deaf community of Saint Elizabeth parish with the people, both hearing and deaf, who live in the urban centers of Jamaica. In contrast to the hustling often necessary for economic survival in Kingston, deaf people [p. 241] in Saint Elizabeth lead lives of relative stability and as agriculturally based people do not experience the anxieties about employment faced by other deaf people on the island. Unlike the matriarchal and often changing family circumstances on the rest of the island, country deaf people tend to have stable family relationships. A mother, father, and children living together in the same house is the rule rather than the exception.

It is likely that within a few years many of the differences between the lives of deaf people in Saint Elizabeth and deaf people in Kingston will disappear. Now in its eighth year, the two-room school for deaf children has expanded, and someday all of the deaf children in the area may have the opportunity for formal education. In time deaf children growing up in Saint Elizabeth will know more than their parents do about the world that exists beyond their community, and for them the signs for 'Jamaica' and 'Kingston' will refer to more than abstractions. It is probable too that by learning the urban sign language in school deaf children growing up in Saint Elizabeth parish will have no difficulty in communicating with their urban counterparts in the Kingston Club for the Deaf – or for that matter with deaf people from English-speaking North America.

In many ways these changes are for the good. It is easy to romanticize the lives of country sign language users and ignore the disadvantages of the limited world in which they live with its few opportunities for educational or vocational advancement. Still, one feels a certain wistfulness realizing that with the school's continued success a language and even a way of life are likely to be lost forever.

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[p. 242] Dr. David Dolman returned recently from Kingston, Jamaica, where he served the Mennonite Central Committee as coordinator of a training program for teachers of the deaf. He is now with Special Programs and Services at William Rainey Harper College (Algonquin & Roselle Roads, Palatine, IL 60067).

NOTE:

1. The numbers 6-9 are signed in two different ways. In one the dominant hand makes 5 (all extended, spread) while the other hand makes 1 (index finger) for '6'; substitute ASL '2' for signing '7'; 5 with a W-hand (ASL) for '8'; and 5 with a 4-hand for '9'. The other system uses the dominant hand for 5 also but the pinky or 'i' finger to sign '6'; the pinky and ring fingers are used (with the other hand's 5) for '7', and the last three fingers (ASL 'F-hand') for '8'. Nine is signed identically in both systems. Country SL seems to be more flexible in this domain than urban SL on Jamaica, which adheres to ASL counting principles. No evidence is available on the manual counting of rural hearing Jamaicans of different ages and educational levels.

REFERENCE:

Wilbur, R. (1979) American Sign Language & Sign Systems. Baltimore: University Park Press.