finger alphabet

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

From The Guilty River by Wilkie Collins

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 Harry Best

While the two children were holding converse through the medium of the finger alphabet, Lucy's face was suddenly lit up by a smile so beautiful as to call forth from us an involuntary exclamation.

From Reminiscences, 1819-1899 by Julia Ward Howe

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 Garrick Mallery

I then said to her with the finger alphabet, "wind fast," or "wind slow," holding her hands and showing her how to do as I wished.

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 John Albert Macy