Mothers, Mountain Devils, and Pointing to Eternity: The "Horns" Handshape in Australian Indigenous Sign Languages

Abstract:Australian Indigenous sign languages are predominantly used by hearing people as a replacement for speech in certain cultural contexts. In some circumstances sign is used alongside speech, and in others it may replace speech altogether. This article provides a window on some of the articulatory dimensions of these sign languages by examining the distribution of the "horns" handshape in repertoires of sign from a range of communities in Central and Northern Australia. The horns handshape is notable as it is one of the more common handshapes found, at least in some of the sign languages used in Australian Indigenous communities. This contrasts with the apparent infrequency of this handshape in some other sign languages of the world. By implementing a methodology that takes the interconnections between sign and speech into account, the article explores loose networks of semantic association in signs that employ this handshape and assesses evidence of semantic motivation for its use in sets of related signs.