90-Minute Symposium

090-075

Languages Without Ancestors

Session Start/End Time:

Sunday, Feb 15, 2009, 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM

HRC Crystal A

What is the nature of language genesis and change? Scientists have recently discovered very young languages with no historical roots or linguistic lineage that emerged under distinct geographical and social conditions: an isolated Bedouin village in Israel and an urban city in Nicaragua. These languages were created de novo by deaf people who had no access to a spoken language because of deafness and who had little or no contact with a sign language. Another category of parentless language is found in deaf linguistic isolates who have access neither to a conventional language nor to other deaf people. These individuals create communicative systems within their family, but they do not form a community of signers. In Nicaragua, such individual “homesign” systems provided the raw materials for the language that emerged when schools brought together formerly isolated deaf children. In Israel, the sign system of the first generation of deaf people developed directly into a community language, now in its third generation. The patterns of linguistic structure found in gesture systems of homesigners and in successive generations of signers provide evidence for cognitive, linguistic, and social forces that determine the course of language evolution. This symposium explores the circumstances that lead to the birth of a new language, the contribution of children and of community to the emergence of linguistic structure, and the capacity of the human mind to create language.

Organized by:

Karen Emmorey, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA

Presentations:

  Symposium Organizer--Karen Emmorey, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA

  Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language: An Autochthonous Sign Language of the Negev Desert--Mark Aronoff, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY

  The Emergence and Evolution of Nicaraguan Sign Language--Ann Senghas, Barnard College of Columbia University, New York, NY

  The Gesture Systems of Linguistic Isolates: Raw Material for a New Sign Language--Marie Coppola, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

  Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language: An Autochthonous Sign Language of the Negev Desert--Wendy Sandler, University of Haifa, Israel