How did the New Zealand Sign Language create in here?
In New Zealand, there was no school for the Deaf before 1865 and the colonists who have deaf child/children sent their deaf child to United Kingdon, Australia and USA. The parents paid their own wage – about £30 a year.
The first school was in 12th August 1816 and it was Samuel Marsden, an Anglican who runs the First Mission School for the Māori in Hohi (Oihi) in the Bay of Islands. The teacher was Thomas Kendall and the assistant William Carlisle. The next school in 1840 and it runs by the Wesleyans and the Catholics. The earliest schools in New Zealand was between 1853-1854 and it runs by the provincial governments. Before 1853, the schools run by the churches and private enterprises. The was no records about deaf or blind Māori children attended these schools and the sign language.
The first teacher of the Deaf children came to New Zealand – Miss Dorcas Mitchell from London, the United Kingdom around 1868. Rev. R. R. Bradley who had 8 deaf children out of 9 children in the family and he employed Miss Dorcas Mitchell as a Governess-tutor. Dorcas arrived in New Zealand earlier before 1868 and her name on the shipping records was hard to track down through the Archives. However, Dorcas was teaching other deaf children in the South Island, New Zealand, Queensland, Australia and the institution for the Deaf, London, England. There was no name of the institution in the records of the other authors. The only Institution in London was Deaf & Dumb Institution, Old Kent Road, formerly Margate Asylum for the Support & Education of the Deaf & Dumb Children of the Poor, London around 1861/1862. I am unable to get the records from the Royal School for Deaf children Margate & Westage College for Deaf people. Dorcas had got fifteen years experience as a Teacher of the Deaf.
Many of the earliest deaf children went to Australia, USA and England Deaf schools and they came back home in New Zealand each year. These deaf children were likely to speak as oralism or to communicate in creoles pidgin sign languages before the 1870s’. These deaf children who choose to communicate in sign language and they bought their British Sign Language back to New Zealand around the 1860s.
Signs created by a combination of hands shapes, facial expressions, lip patterns and body language to convey meaning. It is a fully visual language and its own grammatical structure and rules.
The photo of a woman at the top page – Flossie (Florence) Yates related to my late father – Ray’s mum’s side family of the Watkinson-Yates. I remember visiting Aunty Flossie during the weekend even during the school holidays when my late grandma – Bibby as they called her. Flossie lived in Hamilton where I grew up. Flossie went to Sumner School for Deaf children, Christchurch in 1921. I did not know that she was deaf until my great-uncle Fred and great aunty Joy Yates told me. Flossie, Fred and Joy were related to my cousin – Dianne Yates who was an MP of Labour Hamilton East. Flossie does not sign at all and she used lip-reading and speak like everyone.