WITHOUT A WORD XI: GIMME A BOOK!

Actually give me a bible, but I just did this as a cover for the Folump catalog and really liked it!

Monastic sign language has been used in Europe from at least the tenth century by monks of the Benedictine Order because “silence is a virtue.” It was a method using a hand lexicon to name certain commonplace things without speaking aloud. It is not a language, per sé, like ASL, though very useful. This article was inspired by Debby Banham’s The Anglo-Saxon Monastic Sign Language.

If you would have a book, move your hand back and forth, raise up your thumb and set your hand flat against your chest.