LL-L: "Sign languages" LOWLANDS-L, 30.JAN.2000 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L Administrator]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 30.JAN.2000 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: gft [gftighe2 at home.com]
Subject: LL-L: "Sign language" LOWLANDS-L, 26.JAN.2000 (13) [E]

Hi Folk

> From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk]
> Subject: LL-L: "Sign language"
> snip
> .... Recent research has shown that children who
> don't develop language early will never develop a high degree of proficiency
> in any language. One way in which this shows up clearly is the distinction
> between deaf children who are forced to learn spoken languages and can't cope:

> later in life they fail to develop competence in either sign or speech.
> However, learning sign language naturally at an early age results in deaf
> children also becoming proficient at spoken languages later. The important
> thing seems to be that language, whether signed or spoken, is learned early
> enough for the necessary brain structures to be formed.

snap
I read within the last 5 years that deaf children raised together in
geographical isolation, without the benefit of sign language training
evolve/develop their own system, and that when disparate similarly raised groups

interact it takes little time, and effort before there is easy communication.
(My paraphrasing above is of the work of a Canadian academic working abroad. I
think there was a Cambridge connection to the publication, and his writing took
the approach of a 'layman's guide to linguistics'.)

A Fanciful notion.
Given: There are sight/sound/meaning commonalties in the Lowland Languages. I
wonder if a group of Lowland mono linguists, one participant from each tongue,
were isolated in the Veldt, or Northern Canada how long it would take before a
new Lowland language would evolve?

Regards

Gerald

----------

From:  "Ian James Parsley" <parsley at highbury.fsnet.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L: "Sign language" LOWLANDS-L, 29.JAN.2000 (03) [S]

Mark,

I wasn't meaning that sign language people here deliberately stayapart,
merely that it is a fact of life here in Northern Ireland thatProtestants
rarely intermingle with Catholics - just as blacks rarely intermingle
socially with whites in the States, for example. It would be nice tothink
that cross-community signing programmes could become a reality beforelong,
perhaps they are already.

History is of course a complicated thing - the Ulster Scots came hereto
escape Scotland's feudal system, yet these days the Scots areincreasingly
against the system while Ulster Scots usually cling to it as a centralpart
of their identity. Such anomalies are not uncommon amongminority-language
groups. But to say more than that here, I think, would go beyond thescope
of this list.It would be good, however, if deaf people in NI could ignore the
history andget on with living together and maybe learning the intricacies of one

another's sign language.

Best,
-------------------------------
Ian James Parsley
http://www.gcty.com/parsleyij
"JOY - Jesus, Others, You"

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