![O100-412 [tobacco : UK] Ogden “Boy Scouts” fifth series of 25 cards (September 1914), card number 213](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2022-03/sign%20language.jpg?itok=vOB1TN8v)
This is the first card in a series which spreads over four cards and gives what it calls the basic alphabet for the Deaf and Dumb. You can now see all the cards, front and back, at the bottom of this section.
We know this today as sign language, and it is, as it says, a way of converting the alphabet, and some common phrases into a sign or symbol that is universally known. In this country it is often called British Sign Language, or BSL for short, and it is actually recognised as an official language. Something you may not know though is that just like any language it has regional variations, and the signs can also be different in other countries.
You may think it is very far sighted of the scouts to include sign language in their lives, but it also had a more secretive use, more along the lines of codes and ciphers, that could be used to pass messages and comments under the noses of non-scouts.
As for when sign language began, the earliest recorded reference to a system that enabled people to express their feelings by making signs comes in the 5th century BC - however it suggests that it was already in common usage by those who could not speak. You can read the entire fascinating story of sign language at Wikipedia/SignLanguages - and I would also like to mention sense.uk
Even more amazingly, I know of no other cards showing sign language in the whole of cartophily. If you do, please let us know.
Rather a tale to tell here about the "Boy Scouts" grouping, but the home page for that is with our Card of the Day for the 27th of July, 2022. This will soon contain the listing of all the sets and the links out to the constituent parts, where just the relevant section of that one group will appear.
This set, the fifth, was only issued by Ogdens, and there are, unusually, only twenty-five cards, rather than the usual fifty. It is first recorded in our original Ogdens Reference book (RB.15), which was published in 1949, as
44. 5th Series. 25 subjects. Numbered 201-225. Backs in green. Issued 1914.
It was actually issued in September 1914, which could well be why it only had twenty-five cards; perhaps the arrival of the war changed everything, and they just printed the artwork which had been done so far, desperate to get the information out there quickly to all the boys who would be affected by the war, or become part of it. Maybe other parts were also planned, but cancelled. We will never know
Anyway here are all four fronts. And if you do know of any other cards featuring sign language, please let me know.
