Fingerspelling facts for kids

Fingerspelling in British Sign Language.

Fingerspelling is a special way to spell words using your hands. It's like making the letters of the alphabet with different hand shapes. Many deaf people use fingerspelling. It helps them communicate words that don't have a sign in sign language. They also use it when they don't understand a sign.

Other people use fingerspelling too. They might use it to talk in secret. Sometimes, it helps people remember things. You can also use it to talk without making any sound. This is useful in quiet places like a church.

Fingerspelling is a part of many sign languages around the world. Just like writing systems are different in different countries, fingerspelling is also different. Each country might have its own unique way of fingerspelling. Some alphabets use only one hand, while others use both hands.

Images for kids

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  Relationships between the manual alphabets of sign languages, expressed as a phylogenetic network

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  Ukrainian manual alphabet

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  1494 illustration of a finger alphabet and counting system originally described by Bede in 710. The Greek alphabet is represented, with three additional letters making a total of 27, by the first three columns of numbers. The first two columns are produced on the left hand, and the next two columns on the right. Luca Pacioli modified the finger alphabet to the form shown above, where the handshapes for 1 and 10 on the left hand correspond to the 100s and 1000s on the right.

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  A.

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  B, C, D.

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  E, F, G.

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  H, I, L.

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  M, N.

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  O, P, Q.

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  R, S, T.

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  V, X, Y, Z.

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  Alphabetic gestures have been discovered in hundreds of medieval and renaissance paintings. The above is from Fernando Gallego's retablo panels, 1480–1488, in Ciudad Rodrigo.

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  Plate from John Bulwer's 1648 publication Philocophus, or the Deaf and Dumbe Mans Friend (London).

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  American Manual Alphabet (1882). Letters are shown from a variety of orientations.

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  Antique hand memory system, three variants. Originally published in "Thesavrvs Artificiosae Memoriae", in Venice, 1579.

See also

In Spanish: Alfabeto manual para niños