"The friends of my brothers, who were also deaf, they all spoke Hawaii Sign Language. And so that is where I learned to speak Hawaii Sign Language. And it wasn’t formal instruction, it was just exposure, that’s what we used to communicate," Lambrecht said.
Vocabulary items and grammatical features make Hawaii Sign Language unique for American Sign Language.
It’s a precious gift that needs preserving.
"Over the years, it has been a concern as speakers of the language have passed away, my very close friends, I have talked to them repeatedly about the need to preserve this language," Lambrecht said.
So Lambrecht did what she could.
"I have documented and preserved videos of the language, and I have provided that to the University to publish, and that videos of Hawaii Sign Language can be made and that’s something that definitely needs to happen," Lambrecht said.
And now the University of Hawaii is ready to jump on board.
"We will be working together to develop a long term project to document Hawaii Sign Language, both in textbooks, that we hope to develop textbooks for teaching the language. We hope to develop bilingual, and trilingual dictionaries," said James Woodward, University of Hawaii.
Click HERE to watch a video demonstration of Hawaiian Sign Language.
See the original article at: KHON2 Developing Stories
