finger alphabet

In the Middle Ages monks in their enforced silence often resorted to a finger alphabet.

From The Deaf Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their Education in the United States by Best, Harry

This position of the fingers is that for the letter N in the finger alphabet, the initial for the word non.

From Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-1880, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 263-552 by Mallery, Garrick

Did he by any chance suppose that I had learnt the finger alphabet?

From The Guilty River by Collins, Wilkie

Frau Grote, my German teacher, and Mr. Gilman, the principal, were the only teachers in the school who learned the finger alphabet to give me instruction.

From The Story of my life; with her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Macy, John Albert

Even if you knew the finger alphabet," he said, "it would be of no use.

From The Guilty River by Collins, Wilkie