Emerging sign languages could reveal how all language evolved.

February 27, 2019 6:33 AM

Studying an emerging sign language won’t kill it – so what are linguists scared of?
posted by andoatnp (5 comments total)

Fascinating article! Thanks!
posted by jacquilynne at 7:11 AM on February 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

I always thought that it was a lost opportunity that sign language wasn't a single universal language that people from all verbal languages could understand. This article helped me to understand why that was not possible/desirable.
posted by fairmettle at 7:14 AM on February 27, 2019 [4 favorites]

...we're blaming Western researchers for being "overly careful" in interactions with vulnerable communities when the dynamic in question is not well understood? That seems a bit strange to me.
posted by praemunire at 8:47 AM on February 27, 2019 [8 favorites]

This is fascinating and so, so cool. I recently got to attend a couple of classes on the history of ASL and deaf culture in the US, and we talked a little about the history of the Martha's Vineyard Sign Language, which became extinct when ASL became the dominant language. I do get where there could be a conflict between different people's ideas about what are the best outcome for the speakers of Kata Kolok, but as a linguist, getting to study an emerging language is so exciting. I think the Star Trek style prime directive is a good thing to emulate.

Thanks so much for this article!
posted by bile and syntax at 11:49 AM on February 27, 2019 [2 favorites]

Nifty!
I'm surprised that they didn't include ABSL. This is a unique sign language that is used by ~150 people.

I read about this in the book Talking Hands by Margalit Fox. If you're a language geek, you will love this book.

Cool things - there is a rule of thumb for the age of a language, which is the number of words for colors. The youngest languages typically start with light, dark, and red (daytime, nighttime, blood) and grow from there. This holds true for sign languages.

When testing the linguistic complexity of ABSL, one of the tests involved having a deaf person watch a Sylvester and Tweety cartoon alone and then tell the story of the cartoon to a hearing person who knows ABSL, typically a family member. Then that family member tells the researcher the plot of the cartoon without ever having seen it. One of the reasons for doing the cartoon choice is that it has a lot of actions that need to be described that fall into the category of "A took action B to character C using thing D which caused E", which a fairly heavy linguistic load.

One of the other issues taken up by Talking Hands is putting to rest the debate of whether or not sign language is actually language. In addition to FMRI scans which show that sign language hits the same section of the brain, one thing I find truly fascinating is that deaf people who have had a stroke that affected their language center suffer from aphasia and are unable to access signs for some words in ways that are similar to a speaking person.

The example I recall is that a patient couldn't access the ASL sign for flower, but instead drew in the air a stem and petals.
posted by plinth at 12:05 PM on February 27, 2019 [9 favorites]