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TitleArticle: Oneida Sign Language Created to Connect Deaf Community with their Culture
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From http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/oneida-sign-language-culture-deaf-1.4605295

Oneida sign language created to connect deaf community with their culture
Deaf community members are working with master language speakers to create signs based on the Oneida language
by Ashley Albert
April 15, 2018

A grandmother is working to preserve the Oneida language for others — even though she has never heard it spoken herself.

Marsha Ireland, 59, has been deaf all her life. She's a member of the Turtle clan from Oneida Nation of the Thames, near London, Ont..

...The signs are being developed as part of a pilot project at the Oneida Language and Cultural Centre.

Marsha and her partner, Max Ireland, work with master speaker and elected councilor Olive Elm to create the signs. 

...They're partly relying on a sign language developed hundreds of years ago by Plains Nations tribes that facilitated communication across North America.

"I look at the Oneida language and then look at the Plains sign language and try to connect the two. I look to Elders at the gestures that are used with story telling … it is a combination of all those things," said Ireland.

Since the Oneida language is action-based, Ireland said it really lends itself to the Plains sign language. 

Read the full article at http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/oneida-sign-language-culture-deaf-1.4605295

SourceCBC
Inputdate2018-06-07 08:19:32
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