Naga Hills Sign Language was a

village sign language A village sign language, or village sign, also known as a shared sign language, is a local indigenous sign language used by both deaf and hearing in an area with a high incidence of congenital deafness. Meir ''et al.'' define a village sign langu ...

Nagaland Nagaland () is a States and union territories of India, state in the northeast India, north-eastern region of India. It is bordered by the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh to the north, Assam to the west, Manipur to the south, and the Naga Sel ...

. Early in the 20th century, a high incidence of deafness was observed among communities of the

Naga hills The Naga Hills, reaching a height of around , lie prominently on the border of India and Myanmar. They are part of a complex mountain system, and the parts of the mountain ranges inside the States and territories of India, Indian states of Naga ...

. A sign language was used by both deaf and hearing members of the community. Ethnologist and political officer

John Henry Hutton John Henry Hutton Order of the Indian Empire, CIE Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, FRAI (27 June 1885 – 23 May 1968) was an English-born anthropologist and an administrator in the Indian Civil Service (ICS) during ...

wrote:

References

{{sign language navigation, state=collapsed Village sign languages Sign languages of India Extinct languages of Asia Extinct sign languages

Sign language Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with #Non-manual elements, no ...

Culture of Nagaland Language isolates of Asia