Sign languages in West Africa

Nyst, Victoria

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511712203.019

Cited by 47 publications

(17 citation statements)

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“…In many cases of sign language emergence, linguistic systems begin as improvised homesigns within family units and develop as they are learnt by, and transmitted to, a wider community. These communities may emerge due to high rates of hereditary deafness, as is the case with many village sign languages such as Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language in Israel , Kata Kolok in Indonesia (De Vos, 2014) and Adamarobe Sign Language in Ghana (Nyst, 2010), or they may emerge due to changes in educational policy, such as the provision of schools for the deaf. The latter led to the development of Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL), which emerged in the late 1970s after a deaf school was established in Managua, and deaf individuals who had developed their own homesign systems were then able to interact with each other and develop a conventionalised language within the school (Kegl, Senghas, & Coppola, 1999;Senghas & Coppola, 2001;Senghas et al, 2004).…”

Section: Field Research: Homesign and Emerging Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolving artificial sign languages in the lab: from improvised gesture to systematic sign

Motamedi¹,

Schouwstra²,

Culbertson³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Recent work on emerging sign languages provides evidence for how key properties of linguistic systems are created. Here we use laboratory experiments to investigate the contribution of two specific mechanismsinteraction and transmission-to the emergence of a manual communication system in silent gesturers. We show that the combined effects of these mechanisms, rather than either alone, lead to a gradual increase of regularity, systematic structure and communicative efficiency. The gestures initially produced by participants are unsystematic and resemble pantomime, but come to develop key language-like properties similar to those documented in newly emerging sign systems.

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Section: Field Research: Homesign and Emerging Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolving artificial sign languages in the lab: from improvised gesture to systematic sign

Motamedi¹,

Schouwstra²,

Culbertson³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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“… 18 The languages that arise in this context are called village sign languages and often have a high proportion of hearing users, for example, the sign language used on Martha’s Vineyard (Groce 1985), Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, ABSL (Sandler et al 2005; Meir et al 2007, Meir et al 2010; Padden et al 2010), Adamarobe Sign Language (Nyst 2010); Kata Kolok (Branson et al 1996). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

When does a system become phonological? Handshape production in gesturers, signers, and homesigners

Brentari

Coppola

Mazzoni

et al. 2011

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

132

137

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Sign languages display remarkable crosslinguistic consistencies in the use of handshapes. In particular, handshapes used in classifier predicates display a consistent pattern in finger complexity: classifier handshapes representing objects display more finger complexity than those representing how objects are handled. Here we explore the conditions under which this morphophonological phenomenon arises. In Study 1, we ask whether hearing individuals in Italy and the United States, asked to communicate using only their hands, show the same pattern of finger complexity found in the classifier handshapes of two sign languages: Italian Sign Language (LIS) and American Sign Language (ASL). We find that they do not: gesturers display more finger complexity in handling handshapes than in object handshapes. The morphophonological pattern found in conventional sign languages is therefore not a codified version of the pattern invented by hearing individuals on the spot. In Study 2, we ask whether continued use of gesture as a primary communication system results in a pattern that is more similar to the morphophonological pattern found in conventional sign languages or to the pattern found in gesturers. Homesigners have not acquired a signed or spoken language and instead use a self-generated gesture system to communicate with their hearing family members and friends. We find that homesigners pattern more like signers than like gesturers: their finger complexity in object handshapes is higher than that of gesturers (indeed as high as signers); and their finger complexity in handling handshapes is lower than that of gesturers (but not quite as low as signers). Generally, our findings indicate two markers of the phonologization of handshape in sign languages: increasing finger complexity in object handshapes, and decreasing finger complexity in handling handshapes. These first indicators of phonology appear to be present in individuals developing a gesture system without benefit of a linguistic community. Finally, we propose that iconicity, morphology and phonology each play an important role in the system of sign language classifiers to create the earliest markers of phonology at the morphophonological interface.

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“…This applies, for instance, to all of the WH-signs used in the sub-corpus (coded WH-BUSL), and all negator signs that were coded NEG-BUSL. The details of how ASL arrived and spread in Burundi are not documented, but Nyst (2010) provides possibly comparable scenarios of ASL spread in West Africa, emphasising the role of deaf education in the process. This includes regions of West Africa where, as in Burundi, French rather than English has been the dominant language of education.…”

Section: Monolingual Data From Burundi Sign Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Two languages at hand – Code-switching in bilingual deaf signers

Zeshan¹,

Panda²

2019

Sign Multilingualism

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This article explores patterns of co-use of two sign languages in casual conversational data from four deaf bilinguals, who are fluent in Indian Sign Language (ISL) and Burundi Sign Language (BuSL). We investigate the contributions that both sign languages make to these conversations at lexical, clause, and discourse level, including a distinction between signs from closed grammatical classes and open lexical classes. The results show that despite individual differences between signers, there are also striking commonalities. Specifically, we demonstrate the shared characteristics of the signers' bilingual outputs in the domains of negation, where signers prefer negators found in both sign languages, and WH-questions, where signers choose BuSL for specific question words and ISL for general WH-questions. The article thus makes the argument that these signers have developed a fairly stable bilingual variety that is characteristic of this particular community of practice, and we explore theoretical implications arising from these patterns.Code-switching, community of practice, Indian Sign Language, Burundi Sign Language, negation, WHquestions, unimodal sign bilingualism 1.

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Sign languages in West Africa

Cited by 47 publications

References 0 publications

Evolving artificial sign languages in the lab: from improvised gesture to systematic sign

Evolving artificial sign languages in the lab: from improvised gesture to systematic sign

When does a system become phonological? Handshape production in gesturers, signers, and homesigners

Two languages at hand – Code-switching in bilingual deaf signers

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