New Sign Language
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by: david field
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Children of Nicaragua over the past 30 years have developed a new sign language; this has enabled scientists to look at the way a language develops over time. This is similar to spoken languages, for example when children learn Spanish, they create new words that are not in the dictionary.
Like all languages, sign language follows the same common rules, despite that fact that the children were not taught them. This indicates that some languages features do not come from a culture and instead come from when humans interact between each other.
This however has been the debate for many years on how a language develops. Some scientists believe that some parts of a language like ‘grammar’ are hard-wired in to our brains, on the other side of the scale some scientists believe that a language has no innate basis and instead it is culturally transmitted. The language debate will stay for many years to come due to the difficulty of pinpointing where and how languages originally formed.
This is the reason behind the importance of this study; it has given scientist the most in-depth view into how we learn a language.
Prior to the 1970’s the Nicaraguan people had little contact with each other.
In 1981, the first vocational school in Nicaragua opened, although nobody actually taught the children to sign with each other or even communicate with each other. Over a period of time the children began to develop ways in which they could get their messages across to one another.
As time went by the children turned the gestures in to a complex language. One gesture for example that conveyed rolling down the hill, was split into two different words, but if a hearing person was asked to express this by use of his hands they would most likely use a single movement with their hands.
This is very strong evidence that that suggests that humans are predisposed to learn a language this way. Children automatically break information into more manageable chunks, this way they have more flexibility when it comes to reconstructing the sentences.
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This author recommends Rosetta Stone for all language learning courses. Whether you want to learn Spanish, learn French, or any of the other languages they have to offer, the service they provide is excellent and there is no pressure placed on the student - they can learn at their own pace.
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