As a little bit of information that some conlangers (as well as journalists and writers in general) may not be aware of:
In general, sign languages are not constructed by committee or by a kind hearing person like you or me to bestow the gift of communication upon the deaf community. The deaf too have the drive to communicate, just like you or me, and they too know what kinds of things can come in handy for communication (get it, handy, drumroll and laughter). This leads to sign languages appearing ad hoc where deaf people happen to congregate, and since some causes of deafness are dominant, there have been communities around the world where a significant minority have been born deaf. Most (ALL!) modern sign languages have developed out of such communal sign languages. Most of those spoken in Europe and the Anglosphere tend to have one particular added stage: when schools for the deaf were first opened, the pupils often originated in a few communities with separate sign languages. In these schools, the languages of the first generations of speakers interacted, affected each other - and one or another won out by whatever reason - an important speaker knowing one of them very well for whatever reason (in many of the communities with dominant genes for deafness, many non-deaf also knew the sign language!) may have tipped the balance, lots of kids from one village may have tipped it, or the status or whatever of one particular specific language may have won.
It is natural linguistic evolution in small communities. Yes, language planning has entered into it - just like it has with regards to Swedish, Icelandic, French and even English. This does not make these languages 'conlangs'.
+1
ReplyDeleteJust a little quiery about the genetics though: I would have thought a recessive allele for deafness is more likely to create societies with high numbers of deaf people. Dominant alleles can't skip generations. With a dominant allele for deafness, hearing parents would always have hearing children (assuming no other causes for deafness) and two deaf parents could also have hearing children as they may carry recessive hearing alleles. With a recessive allele, deafness can arise in any family as potentially anyone could be carrying it, and also, two deaf parents will have only deaf children. Of course, a population can have a high percentage of any trait, whether dominant or recessive, but you seem to be implying that dominance leads to prevalence which, as far as I'm aware, is simply not true. Of course, I'm more than happy to be shown that I'm wrong, but I'm willing to bet that the high levels of deafness in that village on Bali, in Martha's Vinyard and among a group of Berber people in, I think, Israel, are the result of predominantly recessive alleles.
I meant the community that uses the Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language. Bedouin, not Berber! I was thinking Berber people would be a bit far from home in Israel. The one on Bali is called Kata Kolok.
ReplyDelete