LL-L 'Language varieties' 2007.01.27 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

=======================================================================

 L O W L A N D S - L * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226

 http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands.list at gmail.com

 Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/rules.php

 Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org - lowlands.list at gmail.com

 Commands ("signoff lowlands-l" etc.): listserv at listserv.net

 Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html

 Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html

 Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]

 Administration: lowlands.list at gmail.com or sassisch at yahoo.com


 You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
 To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
 text from the same account to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or
 sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.


 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
 L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
 S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)

=======================================================================

L O W L A N D S - L - 27 January 2007 - Volume 03

 ========================================================================

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L 'Language varieties' 2007.01.26 (06) [E]

> From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
> Subject: LL-L 'Language varieties' 2007.01.26 (03) [E/LS]
>
> & then 'Hunters Sign' in Bushman communities must go back to the Dawn
> of Man - we were hunters first. I know of a Bushman kid who caught
> measles in his infancy & became deaf. He never learned to speak, but
> the whole clan talked to him & he talked back in Hunter's Sign. He
> wanted for nothing in reason. Sign isn't limited to where to find it &
> who is to kill it. I believe that sign language started not with the
> deaf but with men on a hunt, or women hunter-gatherers, who didn't
> want to draw unnecessary attention to themselves from the buck, or
> perhaps a pride of lions. We were not always perched on the very top
> of the food chain...

As I understand it, hunting language and American Indian "Plains Talk"
are quite a different thing from Deaf sign languages. These are signed
relatively slowly, are sometimes ingenious but much more basic than
everyday signed or spoken languages. This is because for a method of
communication to develop into a full language it has to be the main
method of communication amongst a group of individuals over two or three
generations: if there's a competing method that's preferred to the
extent that it's used in most situations and for relating stories, then
the secondary mode will never develop into a full language.

In these days of grammar and scientific linguistics making discourse
about languages seem an organised and categorisable affair, it's
important to remind ourselves that a "real" language is mostly a
gigantic heap of idiom that takes a lifetime to learn. This sort of
thing doesn't develop without constant use in every situation
encountered.

There's another type of sign language known as "home sign" which is a
way that isolated deaf people communicate with their families with
made-up signs, but this never develops into a full language. On smallish
islands where there's only one deaf person in a generation their home
sign never goes beyond being able to name objects, since there are no
hearing people who have an interest in communicating by sign 24/7.

I would guess that the hunter language used to communicate with the
isolated deaf person in the BUshmen's clan was much better than home
sign, but not nearly as good as a full language. They probably had low
expectations!

> From: R. F. Hahn < sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Language varieties

> I go along with Sandy's basic premise that spoken ("verbal symbolism")
> began with onomatopoeia, focusing on both sound and sight.  However,
> this goes back very far and is obscured by numerous strata of
> abstraction and compounding, not to mention millenia of sound shifts.

Though I just said there's a theory, I didn't say I believed it myself.
It's very difficult to see how the lip patterns Deaf signers make relate
to anything. Why is it "vee" for "excellent", why "lum" for "vanished"?
Though of course those lip patterns themselves may have developed over
time.

> Sandy:
>
> > As for the ages of sign languages, well, judging by the some of the
> responses so far, I suppose you may be surprised to hear that there
> are
> fully-fledged, indeed highly-developed sign languages that are only
> about 30 years old!
>
> But tell me: Were these truly out-of-thin-air inventions or did they
> draw from pre-existing sign language varieties?  I rather suspect the
> latter is the case.  If so, this would be cases of new code
> synthecization rather than of creating sign languages from scratch.

In the case of Nicaraguan Sign Language, the tradition had been (as in
many societies), to keep deaf people within the confines of the home.
After the revolution a school for the deaf was founded but the teachers
had no language because there was no sign language in the country. So
the nearest thing to sign language at first was the home sign that the
students themselves brought. But these sets of signs were all unrelated,
of course, and home sign itself is "out of thin air", so to speak. So
Nicaraguan Sign Language developed amongst the children and is now
moving out across the country, where the effects of the language vacuum
can still be seen in the phenomenon of "reverse fluency", younger people
and children having better language skills that the older people who use
it.

Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language arose in an isolated village as a result
of a genetic feature resulting in deafness, which can be traced back to
a single person a few generations ago. This has developed in isolation
and... well, I don't normally search the Web to write stuff on a
discussion group (it is about discussion rather than showing off what
you can find out, after all!), but since I had to search to remember the
full name of the language, you might as well just read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Sayyid_Bedouin_Sign_Language  :)

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

==============================END===================================

 * Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.

 * Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.

 * Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.

 * Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l")

   are to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at

   http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.

*********************************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20070127/b918cc62/attachment.htm>