From the documentary "Evolution", the episode "The Mind's Big Bang", it shows how Nicaraguan deaf children developed an entire sign language on their own.
To be sign, some of the captioning for the Nicaraguan parts would be mostly ellipses or bracketed comments indicating that no one much outside the community knew quite what the hell was being signed
I was to work at that school as a Peace Corps Volunteer. The revolution occurred as I was about to begin. I was shipped back to the U.S. and I ended up being assigned to Costa Rica which was developing a standardized sign language for Central America in conjunction with the "Asociacion Mima Bravo" and Gallaudet College. What a great learning experience. I became fluent in Costa Rican sign and much more fluent in ASL. I assume the Nicaraguan deaf community is in contact with the Mima Bravo deaf association in San Jose. It is much easier to communicate given the internet.
This was fascinating. In the US, deaf people "invented" their own sign language, too. Places like Martha's Vineyard, where 1/4 of the population was deaf and everyone in the community signed, had local sign languages. The main reason ASL and British Sign and German and French sign are so well-established and "standardized" is because of the existence of schools for the deaf, and communities of deaf people visiting with each other, etc., If Nicaragua continues to educate their deaf children and adults, the same thing will be true in less than 20 years. The interesting thing is that all these sign languages are visual/spatial languages and share similar structure and syntax and use of classifiers and non-manual features.
The difference is that Nicaraguan Sign Language is not bootstrapped by any alphabetic or phonetic based language, and therefore it has no connection with Spanish Sign Language (which is otherwise what would have been taught to them). The best teachers for the language are these children (now grown up -- remember this happened in the 1980s) since they are the only experts of this language.
@@websnarf Not sure what you mean by "bootstrapped" here. Also, why should the signed language of Nicaragua be related to the signed language of Spain? American Sign Language did not evolve from British Sign Language. Rather, it is primarily descended from French Sign Language--And French Sign Language is not based on French. Signed languages are not named for the voiced languages that are spoken in their region. Signed languages are named after the primary region in which they are spoken. Signed languages are not and never have been the local voiced language transposed onto the hands.
This is very interesting, and it is helpful for scintific studies on cognition and linguistics, this is not for uneducated individuals. One of the most important elements here is that the youngest children were the ones who improved the sign language that only a group of preteens used to communicate...
The auto speech to text captioning doesn't work. Text represents death for deaf and the word 'f**k' was used several times. This is few years old and not captioned? Why not? This is about deaf people and they can't access the content in this video? Plus the video frame is not ideal, the view around signer keeps cropping out the signed content in this video. Its like for a hearing person listening to video with sound being dropped. I want to see a video created by a Deaf person on this as it would be more meaningful and I think will show more naunces to this view of Deaf children developing language. I'm Deaf and I've read the academic articles on this by the primary researchers on this as well attended Coppola's seminar on this. The video doesn't do it justice. Maybe its because I can't understand the video.
Yes. I really wish more people would allow public captioning :/ It's good internet citizenship and, if you're contributing captions, a great excuse to watch interesting videos twice, too
@RussMoxham You misunderstand. I was talking specifically about the English. I can only lipread so much. This video excludes a large population of people who would be personally interested in sign languages and their formal recognition. I could understand some of the ISN since it has a lot in common with ASL. I'd love to learn more of it!
@@ilyasjensen1519 lol, I did. It's interesting isn't it? I mean, I used to think that children were stupid... but these folks, they made a whole language from scratch! awesome...
@Russell5892 I'm not sure the language has been decyphered (or maybe even developed) to the extent that anyone who's not a pupil at the school in question actually knows exactly what is being signed. The point is that the kids have essentially evolved their own language here, and a whole lot of people have had to spend a whole lot of time and effort at least trying to work out what the hell is going on. I'm not sure how rigid the syntax is, etc.--it's a work in progress and always will be.
@DeeJaySoulStep I don't doubt that ISN has a complex grammar but it's only existed for about 30 years; I presume it's still evolving. The main point is: nobody had a clue what was going on until Kegl went in and I doubt that even Kegl (the window for native-speaker language acquisition having long since closed for her) understood every sign, point of grammar, etc. And I don't know what stage the research had reached by the time this documentary footage was made.
@RussMoxham You have no clue about the topic, read the wikipedia article. This is the best researched pidgin-mixed language ever. And they use a proper grammatical system. Even more complex than ASL. After contact with the American Sign Language, they were able to communicate with the outside world. It's also possible to write it with signs. enDOTwikipediaDOTorgSLASHwikiSLASHNicaraguan_Sign_Language
@DeeJaySoulStep Also, there's a difference between cataloguing the details of a language and having complete understanding of it or competence in it. I doubt there were many people around when this documentary was made who could've told an outsider with any authority what all the signs meant (individually or in sequence). Wouldn't they have had to be native in ISN and also able to speak a spoken language (Spanish, say)? I'm betting if I call my local translation agency, they won't do ISN :D
International sign is NOT a language. It is a pidgin communication style that was invented. By definition languages aren’t invented, they evolve. Judy went through the linguistic definition of language to determine this. She is fluent in ASL (and now Nicaraguan sign language too). She is looking for consistent grammar, the five parameters of a sign, distinct cultural features, and fluidity over the generations.
Does this video distinguish the fact that this really only applies to English speaking people? That is to say, this has nothing to do with concept of language as much as it does translating English to another language. "On their own" is just insulting. All humans are born with the capacity for communication. This is nothing evolutionary about this. Also, what does "the mind's big bang" suppose to mean? Are you talking about the in-jest phrase used to describe the concept of how the universe began? Or some sort of orgy? I suggest changing the title to something like: "Teaching other people English: One person's opinion on how people should communicate. Not a big deal really"
