Why is the language of a “signing village” like Al-Sayyid so crucially important to science?
A brand-new, indigenous sign language like that of Al-Sayyid, offers scientists an unprecedented opportunity to see the human “language instinct” in action—to watch what happens when the mind has to make a language from scratch. As Wendy Sandler, one of the four scientists profiled in Talking Hands says: “A linguist never has the opportunity to see how language is born. All spoken languages are either thousands of years old or came about as a result of contact between languages that are thousands of years old. So in spoken language there is no such thing—there can be no such thing—as a new language born of nothing. Only in a sign-language situation can that happen. If you get a deaf community, then a language will be born, and there are no other languages in the environment that are accessible.
A brand-new, indigenous sign language like that of Al-Sayyid, offers scientists an unprecedented opportunity to see the human “language instinct” in action—to watch what happens when the mind has to make a language from scratch. As Wendy Sandler, one of the four scientists profiled in Talking Hands says: “A linguist never has the opportunity to see how language is born. All spoken languages are either thousands of years old or came about as a result of contact between languages that are thousands of years old. So in spoken language there is no such thing—there can be no such thing—as a new language born of nothing. Only in a sign-language situation can that happen.
