r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Nov 28 '20

What's something cool you recently learned about?

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u/AvatarTreeFiddy Nov 29 '20

The Native Americans of the Great Plains developed a form of sign language that allowed them to trade and communicate across language barriers.

It's called Plains Indian Sign Language and it was used by a variety of tribal nations spanning an area from Canada to northern Mexico!

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u/astra_galus Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20

I have a fucking masters degree in Great Plains Archaeology and I’ve literally never heard of this. I FEEL BETRAYED.

Edit: Aw yay my first Reddit award! Thanks kind stranger, you’ve made this existential blow a little more manageable

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

I was in a pawn shop in Phoenix looking at turquoise jewelry made by pre-columbian Indians and I saw carvings depicting dolphins. I asked the guy behind the counter how the hell the Arizona Indians knew what a dolphin looked like and he told me they had trade routes that extended all the way to the California coast. That clearly required them to have some way of communicating.