That's the kind of formula for this.”. They're analyzing it, and they are finding structure there, even sometimes when you didn't intend to put it there. Molly Flaherty, a psychology professor at Davidson College in North Carolina, uses motion-tracking technology to follow the position of people’s wrists in space, to see how the size of the language — the physical size of the signs in space — has been changing over time. Judy Shepard-Kegl: So, they learned it. It is of particular interest to the linguists who study it, because it offers a unique opportunity to study what they believe to be the birth of a new language. Consider supporting our work by becoming a member for as little as $5 a month. A language profile for Nicaraguan Sign Language. James Shepard-Kegl – James and his wife Judy have been involved in Nicaraguan Sign Language for many years now. Shepard-Kegl thought it would just be one trip. Within a few years, teachers and education officials recognized that something incredible was happening at the school and, in 1986, Nicaragua’s Ministry of Education invited the U.S. linguist Judy Kegl to visit as a deaf-education consultant. Carol Zall: And that, of course, is what Nicaraguan Sign Language is: the creation of children. It wasn't a language, but their brains filled in the holes of what was missing. Host Marco Werman: One upon a time, there were no languages. Babies are not given grammar lessons and yet they reliably learn grammar because they have inherent expectations about how languages function, says Shepard-Kegl. Photo by Ann Serghas In the 1970s, a group of deaf Nicaraguan schoolchildren invented a new language. But while the country’s deaf children were being taught Spanish inside the classroom, outside the classroom they were spontaneously developing their own method of signed communication. That means that language is so integral to our human experience that basically give it half a chance to emerge, and it will. “That was the stimulus, that was the input to the younger kids. There was a left-wing insurrection in central America. But outside of the classroom — on the playground, on the school bus — they had found a way to communicate. All rights reserved. ), Proceedings of the Boston University Conference on Language Development, 19 (pp. Previously, most deaf children were completely isolated. Linguistically, this is especically interesting, as it provides linguists a rare opportunity to study the birth of a new language. I’ve lived here 13 years. And though it came out of a period of civil strife, it was not political actors but deaf children who created the language’s unique vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. Today, however, we know a little more, thanks to a language that only came into being recently: Nicaraguan Sign Language. (Kegl is today co-director of the Nicaraguan Sign Language Project and married to Shepard-Kegl.) Thank you all for helping us reach our goal of 1,000 donors. “They either borrow or they perish.”. Want to see what's on deck? She’s signing these words to her adoptive mother Judy, who’s interpreting for her. When the children interacted, instead of adapting their signs to fit an existing language, they developed something unique. Carol Zall: That’s Judy Shepard-Kegl, the woman who was interpreting for her daughter, Yuri. Sign up for our daily newsletter TOP OF THE WORLD and get the big stories we’re tracking delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. Judy believes that the younger kids were in the "critical period" for language, meaning their brains were very receptive to learning. Deaf Costa Ricans born prior to the 1960s, for example, primarily use what is referred to as Old Costa Rican Sign Language. For all that linguists have learned from the study of Nicaraguan Sign Language, perhaps most important is the proof it has provided for a controversial theory of language. They had spent lots of time with the older kids, and been exposed to those gestures and signs that the older group was using. Another reason linguists are fascinated by NSL is because it allows them to study the way that children’s brains influence language. The new government had big plans, including a massive literacy campaign that was launched in 1980. And what she observed in Nicaragua confirmed that belief. Whereas American Sign Language could have extended into Nicaragua by the 1980s, as it did in neighboring Costa Rica where it combined with a locally developed sign language in the 1960s, Nicaragua’s geo-political isolation prevented ASL from entering the country, notes Shepard-Kegl. Usually, we think the older a child is, the better their language skills. Judy was invited by Nicaragua’s Ministry of Education to come observe them. Molly Flaherty: Yeah, like how large are the physical signs? American Sign Language, which has existed since the early 19th century, is used throughout the Americas and is often considered a “lingua franca” among deaf people whose first sign language is a national or regional one. Carol Zall: As part of this drive for literacy, the government started providing special education for deaf kids in public schools. And though it … Nicaraguan Sign Language similarly developed in a vacuum. the fact that it is an unusual situation to begin with — NSL is a new language that is emerging in the absence of influence of other already existing languages Nicaraguan Sign Language is the only language spontaneously created, without the influence of other languages, to have been recorded from its birth. In Managua in the 1980s, too, though free of the influence of eugenicists, the Sandinistas focus on Spanish literacy resulted in the immersion of deaf students in Spanish speaking and reading skills. Offer subject to change without notice. To learn more or withdraw consent, please visit our cookie policy. Carol Zall: Another reason linguists are fascinated by Nicaraguan Sign Language is because it allows them to study the way that children’s brains influence language. Judy Shepard-Kegl: Deaf people were hidden in the homes. There are theories about how language evolved, but the truth is, nobody really knows. Many linguists regard Nicaraguan Sign Language, or NSL, as an important test case, because the language developed almost in isolation, and … Molly Flaherty is a psychology professor at Davidson College. And this is where the new language emerged. Carol Zall: Molly thinks the change has to do with the older signers, the ones from the earliest generations, wanting to make sure they were understood. While ASL has not replaced the pristine, isolated NSL of the 1980s, which still dominates deaf education there, Nicaraguan Sign Language has begun a natural process of integrating elements of ASL. In the 1980s, deaf Nicaraguan children brought together in Managua generated a new sign language, complete with syntax. When the Sandinista National Liberation Front gained power, they embarked on what has been described as a “literacy crusade,” developing programs to promote fluency in reading Spanish. She believes that as long as we’re given the right stimulus, at the right time, our brains will produce language. The World is a public radio program that crosses borders and time zones to bring home the stories that matter. There's a whole lot we don't know about vision and speech perception.   Â. Carol Zall: This is key to Judy’s understanding of what happened. In the 1980s, deaf Nicaraguan children brought together in Managua generated a new sign language, complete with syntax. Get a detailed look at the language, from population to dialects and usage. These children, who ranged in age from four to 16, had no experience with sign language beyond the “home signs” they used with family members to communicate broad concepts. They copied the grammar the little kids generated.”. Then at some point in human development, we began speaking to each other – eventually in ways that followed grammatical patterns. What Language Do People Speak in the Balkans, Anyway? And they pointed to a bunch of kids milling around on a little basketball court in front of us and said, "We want to understand what they're talking about.". Minority languages. And, they're clearly ruining the language, in this way or that way.”Â, It’s also striking that the language has emerged so quickly: “It's not like it takes a hundred years to get a language off the ground, and that's really good to know. Editor's note: A transcript of the radio story can be found below. In fact, the linguistic world is rich with a wide variety of mutually unintelligible signed languages. Atlas Obscura and our trusted partners use technology such as cookies on our website to personalise ads, support social media features, and analyse our traffic. They were gesturing with each other, using the signs they’d used at home with their families. Related: Curious Kids: Why do we say 'OK'? Nicaraguan Sign Language was not imported from some other country. The country has several Indigenous languages, many of which have become extinct, while others are spoken by small groups of Nicaraguans. Yuri Shepard-Kegl: My name is Yuri Shepard-Kegl. Carol Zall: Studying these changes helps researchers test theories of why languages develop the way they do. It is a concept that has generated considerable controversy. The language developed when the Sandinist government of Nicaragua created the first (elementary) school for deaf people, in the 1970s. Kids “don’t know what the [grammatical] rule is but [they] expect that there is a rule.” In Managua’s first deaf school, there was no model and no one to guide the children in sign language and still a language was created in a way never observed before. William Stokoe, known by many as the father of American Sign Language linguistics, disagrees that the emergence of ISN is evidence of a language acquisition device. Teacher Ivania Guevara demonstrates during class to the children with hearing problems in the Melania Morales School in Managua, Nicaragua, Sept. 22, 2004.Â. Carol Zall: Now, not only had these kids never been taught sign language, but there just wasn’t any sign language in Nicaragua. In the decades since Judy’s first trips to Nicaragua, many other scholars have traveled there to study the new language, too. “As you get older, your language instincts tend to diminish,” says Shepard-Kegl. Carol Zall: That means that children have an outsized influence on language. “Languages, by nature, borrow,” says Shepard-Kegl. This educational strategy, known as “oralism,” has long been a subject of debate in deaf education, one that was particularly fierce in the United States where ASL originated. They had spent lots of time with the older children, and been exposed to the gestures and signs that the older group was using. The Development of Nicaraguan Sign Language via the Language Acquisition Process Ann Senghas, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1. She uses motion-tracking technology to follow the position of people’s wrists in space, to measures the physical size of the signs. Until then, there wasn’t any official sign language in Nicaragua.Â. In 1986, Dr. Judy Shepard-Kegl, a sign language linguist trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was invited by the Ministry of Education to furnish consulting services at the Deaf schools established by the Nicaraguan government in Barrios San Judas and Villa Libertad in Managua. This was new for Nicaragua: Previously, most deaf children were completely isolated. It was more like an elaborate system of gestures. Shepard-Kegl believes that the younger kids were in the “critical period” for language, meaning their brains were very receptive to learning. “What we see in Nicaragua is that older signers, they sign larger than do younger signers,” Flaherty said. I’m from Nicaragua. “To my knowledge,” Senghas writes, “there has not been another case of linguists and psycholinguists documenting the birth of a language on a community-wide scale.”. The kids were the first to enrol in Nicaragua… Instead, they focused on teaching children to speak and lip-read Spanish. For example, in early-to-mid-20th century Jim Crow-era Raleigh, North Carolina, under-resourced and pedagogically isolated African-American deaf schools independently developed unique languages, says Susan Burch, an American Studies professor at Middlebury College. Which is not what you might expect. In this respect, Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) is quite unique. For Shepard-Kegl, the way NSL emerged has reinforced her belief that humans have an innate capacity for language: As long as we’re given the right stimulus, at the right time, our brains will produce language. “To think about the fact that this integral product that we all use every day, all day, may really be shaped by the youngest minds, and by the youngest people in our world,” Flaherty said. After a couple of weeks, Judy went to see some younger kids at an elementary school. Courtesy of Nicaraguan Sign Language Projects, Inc. Shepard-Kegl spent whole days watching the students in their classes, and the kids became curious about what she was doing. Kegl is co-director of the Nicaraguan Sign Language Project, which administers programs to empower the Nicaraguan deaf community through the use of sign language. They’ve tracked its development, seeking insights into language formation, cognition and the human mind. Judy Shepard-Kegl: And there, that’s when I saw something very different. The Nicaraguan signers may well reveal more ways in which language fundamentally affects thought, for other aspects of the language besides spatial … Idioma de Signos Nicaragüense, or Nicaraguan Sign Language, is a sign language that was spontaneously invented by deaf schoolchildren in Nicaragua in the 1970s and 1980s. Not only were the elementary students more fluent than their older peers, but they were also operating on a much more sophisticated level. This means that children have an outsized influence on language — not just NSL, but any language. And because there was a new group of kids entering the elementary school in Managua each year, researchers have been able to compare successive generations of signers, to see how the language has been changing over time. Marco Werman: Yuri was born without hearing. Deaf youth with Deaf outreach workers (photo taken in a rural location outside Condega). This is hardly surprising to linguists who appreciate that like all languages, Nicaragua's sign language emerged among a human population. Molly says that older signers are aware that the language is changing — not just the size of the signs, but also things like vocabulary — and, at least some of them think that the younger signers are getting it all wrong: Molly Flaherty: Within the Nicaraguan sign community, you still, you know, will interact with people who will talk about how the kids are being so messy, and so sloppy, in their signing. We depend on ad revenue to craft and curate stories about the world’s hidden wonders. Rather, Nicaraguan Sign Language is as sophisticated, rule governed and versatile as any human language. The language follows many basic rules common to all tongues, even though the children were not taught them. Nicaraguan Sign Language is a language that was developed spontaneously, by deaf children in the 1970s and 1980s. Remember: Nicaraguan sign language wasn’t taught or transmitted to these children in any way. PRX is a 501(c)(3) organization recognized by the IRS: #263347402. The development of Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) within the last several years is a prime example of how a need leads to innovation. Carol Zall: Those children had no way of knowing that those gestures and signs weren’t really a language. Yuri Shepard-Kegl: Right now I’m at home, in my home in Maine. Nicaraguan Sign Language is the only language spontaneously created, without the influence of other languages, to have been recorded from its birth. Every weekday we compile our most wondrous stories and deliver them straight to you. A close look at a strangely global idiom about how little we understand each other. This language is unique, and part of that uniqueness comes from the environment in which it was created. Others believe that when dominant languages arrive, they are appropriated by indigenous communities, often combining with an existing language to create a distinctly local version. “Within the Nicaraguan sign community, you still will interact with people who will talk about how the kids are being so messy, and so sloppy, in their signing. 543-552). In order to communicate manually, these communities had to develop their own signed languages. In D. MacLaughlin & S. McEwen (Eds. “Oralism, Bell believed, allowed deaf people to leave their educational and cultural corners and participate in society at large,” writes Brian H. Greenwald, professor of history at the deaf institution Gallaudet University, via email. By learning English, they argued, deaf individuals would be able to fully participate in U.S. society. It's All Greek to You and Me, So What Is It to the Greeks? It is spoken by about 90% of the country’s population. A language emerging in the 80s amidst a revolution? By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies and Privacy Policy. And it has helped fill in some gaps in our knowledge about how languages evolve, how they work, and the role a community plays in all of that — especially when it comes to the youngest learners. The language arose naturally, among a generation of young Nicaraguans who needed to communicate, while they interacted. “A lot of those older kids weren’t generating grammar the way little kids did. Molly Flaherty: To think about the fact that this integral product that we all use every day, all day, may really be shaped by the youngest minds, and by the youngest people in our world, is, I don't know, I like that idea, that we're all using this, this creation of children all the time, and we don't necessarily realize it. Nicaraguan Sign Language (ISN; Span­ish: Idio­ma de Señas de Nicaragua) is a sign lan­guage that was largely spon­ta­neously de­vel­oped by deaf chil­dren in a num­ber of schools in west­ern Nicaragua in the 1970s and 1980s. Molly Flaherty: Since kids are the primary language learners, they are the ones who are selecting for what stays in language, essentially. One such initiative was opening the first public school for deaf education, the Melania Morales Special Education Center, in Managua’s Barrio San Judas. It was not invented by teachers, parents, or deaf adults and then passed to students through deliberate instruction. In this way, children drive the way a language develops. Yuri Shepard-Kegl: When I was 4 years old, I entered the school and that’s where I started to learn Nicaraguan Sign Language.Â. They now are based in the USA but run Nicaraguan Sign Language Projects.. Tio Antonio – Antonio, a chef originally from Valencia, Spain, lives and works in Granada, Nicaragua running the Cafe de las Sonrisas and other projects providing employment … Featuring. Researchers can take advantage of both the sequence of cohorts today and the range of ages at first exposure within each co-hort to discover when the capacities that shaped the language were available. The language developed when the Sandinist government of Nicaragua created the first (elementary) school for deaf people, in the 1970s. Nicaraguan Sign Language (ISN; Spanish: Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua) is a sign language largely spontaneously developed by deaf children in a number of schools in western Nicaragua in the 1970s and 1980s. “When I walked in, I said, ‘I'm a linguist, I study sign language, what do you want from me?’ And they pointed to a bunch of kids milling around on a little basketball court in front of us and said, ‘We want to understand what they're talking about.’”, At school, the children were taught lip-reading and Spanish and were told not to use gestures. But the first Nicaraguan deaf school did not use ASL or any signs at all. Related: Florida teen girls step up to translate Indigenous Mayan languages. Went Wild for an 18th-Century Scottish Novelist, This Miniature Quran Bears Witness to an Immense History, The Archaeologist Who Collected 4,500 Beer Cans, Lessons on Enduring a Lonely Winter From Antarctic Voyagers, How a Blacksmith in Jordan Created His Own Sign Language, In Naples, Praying With Skulls Is an Ancient Tradition, Inside a Domed Pyramid With Astounding Acoustics and a History of Miracles, Courtesy Nicaraguan Sign Language Projects, Inc. What Is the Hardest Language in the World to Lipread? She’s looked at how the size of the language has been changing from one generation to the next. Though American Sign Language and some other widely utilized sign languages, such as Chinese Sign Language and Indo-Pakistani Sign Language, have long histories, they were often inaccessible to deaf families and institutions in rural, mountainous, or politically-charged regions. Carol Zall: The story starts in 1979. It is well known that most countries have their own specific sign language that the deaf community uses to communicate. So, that means, like, when they're articulating the same sign, their hands actually cover more space. Like Atlas Obscura and get our latest and greatest stories in your Facebook feed. At prese… This occurred at a number of schools in western Nicaragua. No purchase necessary. Moreover, there are many different languages used worldwide. Some linguists feel that the “contamination” of a local language by a more globally dominant one results in the marginalization of a native community because it supplants the indigenous form of communication with something from outside. Sign up for our newsletter and enter to win the second edition of our book. The story you just read is freely available and accessible to everyone because readers like you support The World financially.Â, Thank you all for helping us reach our goal of 1,000 donors. Marco Werman: So, how exactly does Nicaraguan Sign Language tell us more about the human history of language and communication? Bell, Greenwald notes, “used oralism as a form of assimilation.” It was a strategy that Bell hoped would eventually lead to the eradication of deafness in American society. Stokoe also questions assertions that the language has emerged entirely without outside influence, from (for example), Spanish or ASL. But in the mid-1980s, linguists were just learning of NSL's existence. Judy Shepard-Kegl: In 1979, there was what they refer to as the triumph of the revolution. I mean, deaf people weren't even going to the churches, there was a real stigma. © 2021 Atlas Obscura. I’m not sure when irregular verbs entered the picture. The language is of special interest to linguists, because it allows them to study … Sign languages are not simply a series of gestures; they utilise the same grammatical machinery that is found in spoken languages. Carol Zall: When the kids realized that Judy was studying them, they befriended her, started teaching her their signs. There is no teaching methodology for teaching a first language to a child. Private Trip: Immersive Art and Otherworldly Landscapes of Santa Fe, Culinary Naples: Producers, Purveyors, and Pizzaioli, Tales From the Museum: National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, How to Make a Murder: Writing Your Own Murder Mystery Party With Abi Inman, Seeing America Through Its Roadside Signs, Why 1920s L.A. Nevertheless, Nicaraguan Sign Language de-veloped rapidly. Every morning, the editorial team at public radio’s international news show The World meets to plan what they'll cover that day. When children are learning a language, they’re not just passively absorbing words. Older deaf students would teach new students the Nicaraguan Sign Language, and that new generation of students, in turn, would expand on the language. “You start building a vocabulary this way,” he says. It was as if fluency was going backwards. The origin of Nicaraguan Sign Language tells us a lot about language creation In the mid-1980s, linguists stumbled upon a kind of natural experiment on language creation — a … The number of speakers on Rama Cay island was only 4 in 1992, due to language shift to English that engendered Rama Cay Creole. We couldn’t have done it without your support!Â. Carol Zall: Flaherty asks people of different ages to describe the same event to her, to see the differences in how they sign. At school, the children were being taught lip-reading and Spanish, and were told not to use gestures. Related: Virtual schooling poses extra challenges for English-language learners. “The young kids see people trying to communicate, and repeating, and they see gestures, and they look at this, and their brains go, ‘Boom, I'm going to focus on this.’ We are sort of predestined to do that.”, Judy Shepard-Kegl and an NSL signer in Bilwi, Nicaragua.Â. All languages have grammar and syntax, but the first children at Managua’s deaf school had no model for how a language worked because they had been isolated from signed, spoken, and written language all their lives, Shepard-Kegl notes. Official Language of Nicaragua. As Shepard-Kegl started to understand them better, it seemed to her that they didn’t have a full-fledged language — it was more like an elaborate system of gestures.Â, A few weeks later, Shepard-Kegl visited an elementary school. Of all the changes within Nicaragua to come out of the overthrow of the Somoza regime by the Sandinistas in 1979, perhaps the least anticipated was the birth of a new language. And in this way, over time, children drive the way a language develops. Judy teaches linguistics at the University of Southern Maine. In 1986, Judy Shepard-Kegl, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained linguist with expertise in signed languages, was invited by the country’s Ministry of Education to observe the children at the schools in Managua. This was brand new for Nicaragua. Judy Shepard-Kegl: When I walked in, I said, "I'm a linguist, what do you want from me?" In Nicaragua today, changes in technology and communication have led to the increased use of American Sign Language within the deaf community. Shepard-Kegl was not alone in her assessment, and in the decades since that first trip to Nicaragua, many other scholars have traveled there to study the new language, too. Such conventions occur when a community of speakers, who at home may have all used different signs to refer to an object or action, begin to consistently default to using just one, says James Shepard-Kegl. “When you watched these guys signing, it just became very clear, it was like somebody just wiped away the fog, and you could see the grammar right there in front of you.”. Didn’T communicate much at all for helping us reach our goal nicaraguan sign language 1,000 donors really knows Nevertheless Nicaraguan! As the triumph of the Boston University Conference on language Acquisition is discover... Our daily newsletter TOP of the language, looking for patterns in language, and it.... In the homes what she was looking at here first few years of her —! The stories that matter Noam Chomsky suggested that children are learning a language other factors start! 'Re actually really active interpreters of the Nicaraguan Sign Language.Â: # 263347402 that means that children learning! 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