Monastic Sign Languages - Signs

Signs

Signs are well documented in medieval Benedictine monasteries of Western Europe, from Portugal to England. Antique texts present lists of words with accompanying signs, including instructions for sign production, and occasionally also the rationale for the choice of sign. Signs are mostly nouns relating to monastic life, such as foods, articles of clothing, particular rooms and buildings, ritual objects, and the many different ranks of clerical office. The few signs that act as verbs include "sit," "stand up," "kneel," and "confess." They almost always bear an iconic or visually motivated connection to the thing represented by the sign. No grammar is described for these signs, and they were probably used in the word order of an oral language—either Latin or the local vernacular—and possibly with accompanying gesture such as pointing. Modern Cistercian monks in England or the United States use a syntax derived "heavily, but not exclusively," from English, while Cistercian monks in France loosely follow the syntax of the French language; at least as much as it is possible to do so, given the limited lexicon. Vocabulary lists in the medieval texts ranged from 52 signs to 472, with "the average at 178 and a mean at 145."

The earliest Benedictine sign books date from around 1075 (and again at about 1083) at the Abbey of Cluny (in what is now France), and Hirsau Abbey (in what is now Germany) at around the same time. Bonaventure in the 13th century used a finger alphabet, and the medieval Monasteriales Indicia describes 127 signs used by Anglo-Saxon Benedictine monks. A Portuguese list from the 16th century.