Re: glossogenesis (was: Indo-European question)

What about the case of Nicaraguan Sign Language? Before the revolution in 1979,
deaf Nicaraguans had no language at all, just non-linguistic gestures and
pantomimes; they were totally isolated from each other and alienated from their
communities. After the revolution, the Sandinistas established the first
schools for the deaf, and deaf children were brought together for the first
time. Deaf children who grew up around other deaf kids started signing, and lo
and behold, Nicaraguan Sign Language was born. They created what a North
American linguist determined was a full-blown language with no linguistic input
of any kind from anyone. Indeed, before NSL, there was no language parents
could have used with their deaf children, pidgin, full-blown grammar, or
otherwise. The teachers at the school were trying to teach the kids to lip read
(which was an utter failure), and were completely baffled when the kids started
signing with each other, so they weren't the source of the l!
anguage either. The kids developed a full-blown language whole cloth in one generation
from virtually nothing, certainly without any grammatical input, and I believe
this is as close as linguists have ever come to watching it happen.

Now I wonder what the new grammar looks like. Would that have any bearing at all
on what the first human language might have looked like?

-Weiben

>---- Original Message ---
>From: Tommie L Powell <tommiepowell@...>
>To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
>Cc:
>Subject: Re: [CONLANG] glossogenesis (was: Indo-European question)
>
>On Sun, 24 Jun 2001 Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
>> The creole grammar is formed by the children trying to
>> acquire a first language in a pidgin-speaking community.
>> In what sense do those children already speak a language
>> with a full-featured grammar?
>>
>> The pidgin-speaking adults have nothing to do with it ---
>> although they presumably do command another language,
>> the point is that the creole is formed because the various
>> native grammers cannot be used by the adults (because
>> they aren't shared) and therefore the children aren't
>> exposed to them.
>
>You are telling me that the children aren't exposed to their
>own parents' native grammars. If that were true, it would
>mean that a child's own parents avoid talking to their own
>children in their own native language -- and avoid talking to
>each other in front of their own children in their own native
>language -- and that those parents instead choose to speak
>to each other and to their own children in only the crude
>pidgin that's designed to permit imperfect communication
>with foreigners.  As a parent, I cannot imagine doing that.
>
>--Tommie

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