Sign Languages

Inventing languages, inventing worlds. Towards a linguistic worldview for artificial languages

“…However, the transient nature of such systems makes them impossible to trace. Sign languages are therefore spontaneous reactions to the communication needs of deaf communities; "they effectively fulfil all the social and mental functions of spoken languages; and they are acquired without instruction by children, given normal exposure and interaction" (Sandler 2009). This remains in agreement not only with Lyons' theoretical discussion but also with Hockett's design features of human language (on the latter, see section 3.1).…”

“…This means they have to learn signing at school. Sandler (2009), referring to Fischer 1978, writes that "these social conditions taken together with certain structural properties of sign languages have prompted some linguists to compare them to spoken creoles". It needs to be remembered that deaf people always represent a minority, and that their languages will necessarily be different from spoken languages because of the modality employed.…”

Constraints on Negative Prefixation in Polish Sign Language

“…This is because both have similar phonological, morphological and syntactic subsystems [ 1 , 7 – 10 ]. Therefore, natural sign languages are formally structured at different levels and follow the same universal constraints and organizational principles of all natural languages [ 1 , 11 ]. Given the subject matter of this paper, however, the focus here will be particularly on the morphological aspects of sign languages.…”