Many Australian Aboriginal cultures have or traditionally had a sign language counterpart to their spoken language. This appears to be connected with various taboos on speech between certain people within the community or at particular times such as during a mouning period - unlike indigenous sign languages elsewhere which are used as a lingua franca (such as the Plains Indians sign language), or due to a high incidence of heriditary deafness in the community (such as Yucatec Maya Sign Language, Adamorobe Sign Language and Kala Kotok).
Reports on the status of deaf members of such Aboriginal communities differ, with some writers lauding the inclusion on deaf people in mainstream cultural life, while others indicate that deaf people don't learn the sign language and, like other deaf people isolated in hearing cultures, develop a simple system of 'home sign' to communicate with their immediate family.
Early research has been done by the American linguist La Mont West, and later most prominently by English linguist Adam Kendon.
Sign languages occur in the southern, central, and western desert regions, coastal Arnhem Land, some islands of north coast, the western side of Cape York Peninsula, and on some Torres Strait Islands. Sign languages have also been noted as far south as the south coast, but these sign languages (as with many of the spoken languages of south eastern Australia, are probably now extinct.
(see this factsheet)
General
Warlpiri sign language:
Original researchers' notes archived at the IATSIS library:"
From "Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press:"
