Native American Sign Language, or Hand Talk, was developed centuries prior to American Sign Language came to exist. It possesses four crucial elements: hand location, hand movement, hand shape, and hand orientation:

1. Hand Location: This relates to the placement of a sign in space. The sign’s significance can be modified when placed elsewhere, for instance in front of the face as opposed to in front of one’s chest.

2. Hand Movement: This one involves how one's hands move when making a sign. As an example, in Hand Talk, the signs "afternoon" and "mid-day" are formed in the same way. The only real difference is that mid-day is stationary, and afternoon moves from above the head to the side of one's head in an arching gesture.

3. Handshape: Every sign takes on a unique shape in the hand, referred to as a handshape. The handshapes of signs are necessary factors. For instance, the signs for "yes" and "I know" are similar in all aspects except for the handshape; in "yes" the hand forms the characteristic J shape, and in "I-know" the hand forms the L shape.

4. Orientation: This represents palm position and is apparent in the Hand Talk words "above" and "add." Both signs involve using the left hand to form a base, from which the right-hand rises, and both have identical movements, locations, and handshapes. On the other hand, when signing "above," the non-dominant hand is placed palm down, while in "add" the non-dominant hand is palm up.

No one person takes credit for making American Sign Language. Its history reaches back to the early Nineteenth century, when varieties of signs developed in New England’s Deaf local communities. And during the latter section of that century, Hand Talk impacted the formation of ASL, but historians mostly dismiss this fact.

Hand Talk has regional varieties which exist all over North America. Included are a northeastern version that ranges across the present-day New England, upper Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic states. Experts consider this variant of Hand Talk considerably impacted the creation of American Sign Language. This influence took place in the 19th century with the signing of Native American youngsters that attended the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. An online video titled "The Hidden History of "Hand Talk" presents convincing data for Hand Talk’s impact on ASL and US culture.

Nevertheless, despite its once-large number of users and powerful influence on American Sign Language, Hand Talk is at a decline. This effect is a result of the wide-spread depopulation and Americanization of Native North Americans in the last 200 years. For example, in 1885, approximately 110,000 Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Sioux, Kiowa, Arapaho, and other tribal peoples used Native American Sign Language or Hand Talk. Although by the 1960s, merely a fraction of this quantity remained. And in the Twenty-first century, a small number of active Hand Talk users remained.

Such as the other indigenous languages of North America, Native American Sign Language is decreasing in numbers. But as the amount of fluent signers may be minimal, the language continues to be used to varying degrees by some members of Siouan and Algonquian tribes.

In addition, activists like Deaf Cherokee researcher Dr. Melanie McKay-Cody of Arizona are working considerately to help keep North American Hand Talk alive. Dr. McKay-Cody works with tribal groups to help them protect their signed languages. She also advocates for Hand Talk to be integrated into the mainstream education of Deaf and Hard of hearing students. It’s anticipated that this kind of initiatives can help Hand Talk to exist. In this manner, forthcoming generations can easily still use and enjoy the language and appreciate the rich cultural tradition from where it originated.