I am a proud Maritimer and we have our linguistic idiosyncrasies. A crybaby is a “sook”; we don’t pluralise our beer - one beer two beer…5 beer; that unused “s” goes onto “anywheres”, “somewheres”, “anyways”; everyone’s my “buddy” – no need to know them; and we express real sympathy by saying “what a sin!” Acadian French is just as unique and in some places in my home province, it has absorbed English to form another dialect: Chiac. The Maritime Deaf community is no different. Today’s blog post is about Maritime Sign Language, also known as Nova Scotia Sign Language or Old Sign because it has been largely relegated to some communities in that province by the rise of ASL in the region.
The origin of ASL is often traced to the establishment of the Hartford Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb in 1817. Thomas Gallaudet invited a deaf Frenchman, Laurent Clerc, to help him in his goal to improve the education of the Deaf community in the Northeast. American Sign Language is a combination of French Sign Language and Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language. The latter was the first truly American sign language and a natural result of a genetic variant that lead to between 0.65 and 25% of residents of island communities being deaf. ASL has since spread into media and across the North American continent. Maritime Sign is different on a fundamental level: it is derived from British Sign Language. This means that it differs from ASL from the basics of fingerspelling. BSL itself had been used in the region since the establishment of the Deaf and Dumb Institution, Halifax in 1856. Predating Confederation, the school’s founding by two deaf Scottish immigrants would have been marked by the presence of the Empire and resistance to American influence. With the influence of centres like the Halifax, Amherst, and Saint John schools for the Deaf, students of MSL remember that by the late 1950s come-from-aways moving out here from Montreal that had studied BSL and ASL did not recognise the signs.
Maritime Sign is critically endangered. Fewer than 100 people, all elderly, use the language habitually. The community estimates that just three people may be fluent in New Brunswick. Institutions such as St. Mary’s University and the Canadian Government are working with the community to document as much MSL on video as possible to prevent the language from being forgotten: some might call that a second death. The most complete academic analysis of the language is a thesis by Judith Yoel from the University of Manitoba. She points to the fact that users of MSL are loyal to the language: it gives them a sense of security and Maritime autonomy in days that it seems that the Maritimes are falling further behind Canadian progress. However, the last point of her abstract is much less positive. Maritime sign is moribund, the work being done to preserve it is archival, and it will die with its last users.
I find MSL fascinating not just because it echoes the fundamental differences I see as a Maritimer in Ontario: it was also the first example I found of a Deaf subculture. QASL Co-President and Educator Amy had made me aware of Toronto slang and words that kids might use but not their parents, but this is a whole language, a new community. May other isolated Deaf communities not suffer the same fate as MSL. The rise of ASL has linked the world of the Hard of Hearing like nothing before, but like any dominant language, it creates victims.
Benjamin J. Lohoar
Saint John ----> Kingston
Works Cited
American Sign Language at Harvard. "Deaf History Timeline." Deaf History Timeline. Harvard Linguistics Department, 2020. Web. 26 June 2020.
Campbell, Linda, and Betty MacDonald. "Atlantic Provinces Place Names." SMU Deaf Academics and Interpreters. St. Mary's University Faculty of Science, 2017. Web. 26 June 2020.
Davie, Emma. "How the Deaf Community Is Preserving Maritime Sign Language." CBC News. CBC, 31 Dec. 2019. Web.
Yoel, Judith. Canada's Maritime Sign Language. Thesis. University of Manitoba, 2009. Winnipeg: U of Manitoba Libraries, 2009. Library and Archives Canada. Web. 26 June 2020.