View source for Old Kentish Sign Language

{{Short description|Former sign language of Kent, England}}
{{Page numbers needed|date=July 2018}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2018}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2018}}

{{Infobox language
|name=Old Kentish Sign Language
|nativename=OKSL
|states=formerly the [[United Kingdom]]
|region=[[Kent]], [[England]]
|extinct=17th century?
|familycolor=sign
|family=[[village sign language|village sign]]
|iso3=okl
| linglist=okl.html
|glotto=oldk1238
|glottorefname=Old Kentish Sign Language
}}

'''Old Kentish Sign Language''' (OKSL, also Old Kent Sign Language) was a [[village sign language]] of 17th-century [[Kent]] in the [[United Kingdom]], that has been incorporated along with other [[village sign language]]s into [[British Sign Language]].

According to Peter Webster Jackson (2001), OKSL may have been the language used by a deaf boy described by 17th century British writer [[Samuel Pepys]] in his Diaries.<ref>{{cite book |last=Jackson |first=Peter Webster |date=2001 |title=A Pictorial History of Deaf Britain |location=[[Winsford]] |publisher=Deafprint Winsford |isbn=978-0953220649 }}</ref>{{Page needed|date=July 2018}} Pepys was dining with his friend [[Sir George Downing, 1st Baronet|Sir George Downing]] on 9 November 1666, when the deaf servant had a conversation in sign language with his master, which included news of the [[Great Fire of London]]. Downing had been to school near [[Maidstone, Kent|Maidstone]] in Kent, where he lived in a community where [[congenital]] deafness was widespread. This population supported a sign language which was known by many hearing people as well as [[deaf]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Jones |first=Steve |date=1996 |title=In the Blood – God, Genes & Destiny |location=[[London]] |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |page=10 |isbn=978-0002555111 |author-link=Steve Jones (biologist)}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=July 2018}}

As settlers of the [[Martha's Vineyard]] communities of [[Tisbury, Massachusetts|Tisbury]] and [[Chilmark, Massachusetts|Chilmark]] in Massachusetts migrated from the [[Weald|Kentish Weald]], [[Nora Groce]] (1985) speculates that OKSL may be the origin of [[Martha's Vineyard Sign Language]], which is, in turn, one of the precursors of [[American Sign Language]] (ASL).<ref>{{cite book |last=Groce |first=Nora Ellen |date=1985 |title=Everyone here spoke sign language: Hereditary deafness on Martha's Vineyard |url=https://archive.org/details/everyoneherespok00groc_0 |location=[[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |isbn=0-674-27040-1 |author-link=Nora Groce |url-access=registration }}</ref>{{Page needed|date=July 2018}} Others have cautioned against uncritical reception of this claim, "because no deaf people were part of the original migration from Kent, and nothing is known about any specific variety of signing used in Kent."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Woll |first1=Bencie |author-link1=Bencie Woll |last2=Sutton-Spence |first2=Rachel |last3=Elton |first3=Frances |date=2001 |editor-last=Lucas |editor-first=Ceil |editor-link=Ceil Lucas |chapter=Multilingualism: The global approach to sign languages |title=The Sociolinguistics of Sign Languages |page=10|chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=lxpuT_s8AkEC&q=%22Old+Kentish+Sign+Language%22&pg=PA8|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=0-521-79137-5}}</ref>

==References==
<references/>

{{Languages of the United Kingdom}}
{{sign language navigation}}

[[Category:Village sign languages]]
[[Category:Languages of England]]
[[Category:Extinct languages of Europe]]
[[Category:Extinct sign languages]]
[[Category:Sign languages of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Language isolates of Europe]]


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