American Sign Language. Some reports on HSL claimed it to be "the first new language to be uncovered within the United States since the 1930s," or that it may be the "last undiscovered language in the country." Prior to 2013, HSL was largely undocumented. HSL is at risk of becoming dormant due to its low number of signers and the adoption of ASL. HSL and ASL Comparisons HSL shares few lexical and grammatical components with ASL. While HSL follows subject, object, verb (SOV) typology, ASL follows subject, verb, object (SVO) typology. HSL does not have verbal classifiers – these were previously thought to be universal in sign languages, and ASL makes extensive use of these. HSL also has several entirely non-manual lexical items, including verbs and nouns, which are not typical in ASL. HSL Today An estimated 15,857 of the total 833,610 residents of Hawaiʻi (1.9%) are audiologically deaf. Among this population, ASL is now significantly more common than HSL. There are a handful of services available to help d/Deaf Hawaiian residents learn ASL and also for those who wish to learn ASL to become interpreters, such as the Aloha State Association of the Deaf and the American Sign Language Interpreter Education Program. Equivalent services for HSL are nearly non-existent, partially because some members of the Deaf community in Hawaiʻi have felt that it is not worth preservation. Researchers at the Sign Language Documentation Training Center and the University of Hawaiʻi have begun projects to document HSL. Their first goal is to teach graduate students and other linguists how to document HSL and other small sign languages used in Hawaiʻi. Their second goal is to have 20 hours of translated HSL on video. As of 2016, a dictionary and video archive of speakers had been created. References Hawai'i Sign Language. MultiTree: A Digital Library of Language Relationships Hawaii Links & Resources. Signs of Self: Independent Living Services for People who are Deaf, Hard of Hearing, or Deaf-Blind External links Rarrick, Samantha & Brittany Wilson. 2015. Documenting Hawai'i's Sign Language. ELAR archive of Documentation of Hawaii Sign Language Hawai'i Sign Language Hawaiian Sign Language vs. American Sign Language Endangered sign languages Indigenous languages of Hawaii Village sign languages Sign languages of the United States Endangered indigenous languages of the Americas