I've recently watched some videos that ended up discussing sign language, and that has made me realize how I pretty much never see sign language outside of real life contexts. That has led to me wondering what a potential "draconic sign language" would look like. Generally, when it comes to non-verbal dragons, they either simply don't have human-like intelligence, they use simple body language (not a full sign language), or they communicate telepathically. I feel like it would be cool to actually see dragons communicating through some form of sign language, seeing them utilize their own unique anatomy to communicate.

When it comes to a draconic sign language though, the biggest issue I see is that most feral dragons are quadrupedal (ignoring anthro dragons since they don't have any of the problems I'm about to discuss). Because the dragons are quadrupedal, they can't as easily utilize their limbs. While it would be possible for some dragons to stand only on their hind legs and then use their front legs to sign, quadrupedal bodies just aren't designed to do that, it could actually cause health issues since their spines and hind legs aren't designed to support the whole body. Additionally, dragons are often shown to have less dexterity than humans when it comes to limb movement, so complex movements with their fingers (or I guess toes in this instance) are likely much more difficult to perform. Wyverns would be out of luck entirely on this front, considering that their front legs are their wings which can't be dexterous in any way.

However, when it comes to those problems, I have some ideas on how to solve them. First of all, dragons have far more mobile heads than humans do. While we pretty much can only rotate our heads on certain axes, dragons with their long necks have the ability to move their heads to various positions along with rotation. In a sense, their heads are almost like another limb that can move around. In fact, since many real sign languages actually are compatible with one-handed signing, it would probably be feasible for an entire sign language to be based on a dragon's head movement alone (which is likely how wyverns would solve their problems, and it would be endlessly amusing to watch). Head movement in general is already actually important for real sign languages, so this would be a very reasonable extension. Additionally, for dragons that have four legs separate from the wings (like my own dragons), the wings could be useful. They aren't dexterous by any means, but their general position could be helpful to signal negation, hypotheticals, questions, and so on (basically how head movements in real sign languages are used). A possible sign language could likely have it so a dragon uses one front leg to hold themselves up, and then the other front leg and head are both used for signing, with the wings working as extra aids for meaning and intent. Alternatively, depending on the dragon's specific anatomy, it could be possible that a four legged dragon uses their wings as legs like a wyvern would, freeing up both front legs to sign. This alternative method might not work as well, but it would be interesting to see nonetheless.

I think one of the most interesting ideas that can come from a draconic sign language is what happens if a deaf dragon and a deaf human encountered each other and had to communicate. It would be very possible that neither character would even be able to sign in the other's language given the anatomical differences between them. The human signs would require hand movements that are too difficult for the dragon to reasonably pull off, and the dragon signs would require head movements the human couldn't perform, and also would possibly require wing movements that the human can't perform for hopefully obvious reasons. Therefore, they'd need to find some other way to communicate. The easy solution would be writing, but that hinges on both characters being able to read and write. Of course, then there's also the solution where they learn each other's language so that while they can't sign it, they can at least understand it. But, I think the most interesting possible solution would be the creation of a pidgin language, where both characters end up creating their own sort of language that utilizes signs from both languages that both characters can definitely perform. (This whole concept could actually apply to spoken language as well, given similarly large anatomical differences between dragon and human mouth and vocal structures, but that's in general harder to figure out as it's not as obvious what sorts of sounds would be possible and impossible for either species to make. But, also, there are real life animals with significantly different anatomies to humans that can still reproduce human speech really well, so it's not like it's impossible)

I am tempted to create a deaf dragon character that does use a draconic sign language, but I'm honestly not sure how I would go about that. Generally I always try to have some story attached to my characters, since I feel that gives the characters more life to them, but I don't have really any story ideas beyond what I've already stated, and I don't really know how I should write a character that only communicates with sign language. And, finally, I just don't know what it's actually like to be deaf, and I'm not familiar with any sort of sign language. I'd probably want to discuss with someone who is deaf and uses sign language, but I don't actually know anyone like that.

Anyway this turned out longer than I expected. Was fun thinking about though.