Many people assumed our language is English – nearly three fifty hundred years ago in New Zealand. Wrong!

The first language is the Reo  Māori language in New Zealand.

The Māori people arrived in New Zealand between 1250 and 1300 from Hawiki. As a deaf Historian/Linguist/Anthropologist, I studied in Anthropology course,   their origin may come from eastern Polynesia either in the Southern Cook or the Society Islands region before the Europeans arrived in New Zealand. Their language and its dialects developed in isolation until the 19th century. Then the traders, sealers, the gold seekers, the ex-convicts and the Missionaries arrived here and they met many Māori people for trades on guns, foods, whales, flax for rope, timbers for the ships even to settled down and married to a Māori woman.

What about the Plains Indian Sign Language? The Plains Indian Sign Language is an international auxiliary language (a  trade Pidgin Language) before 1520. There were no written records until one trader ‘Cabeza de Vaca’ in 1527 and another trader ‘Coronado’ in 1541.  

Let look back in New Zealand, how do the European people, the traders, the sealers even the convicts from Australia communicate with the Māori people?

There was no written record about sign language before the European People even the Missionaries before 1810. There should be or a definitely kind of records in sign language in these days, BUT where are the proof of written records today?

Imagine how Captain James Cook met the Māori people on the beach landing? Did they use pointing at something like foods, guns or alcohols? Did they do body gestures to describe the movement like to drink, sleep? 

This picture is from the National Library Archives, Wellington. http://mp.natlib.govt.nz/detail/?id=21991&recordNum=75&t=pictorial&f=id$%5B0+TO+*%5D&s=da&l=en

The first teacher of the Deaf children – Dorcas Mitchell, came to Christchurch from London and she took up a job under the Rev. R R Bradley and his Deaf children in 1868. Her teaching method was a BSL (British Sign Language) and she came from a family who have a deaf sister and several deaf cousins in Scotland.

BUT when did the New Zealand Sign Language start?