#isn

Chris Froome 🙌

moodboard: trans bi steve harrington

Droped know  🔥

Quite obvious isn t it

A Year in Language, Day 325: Nicaraguan Sign Language Nicaraguan Sign Language, or ISN (Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua), is a sign language born in Nicaragua in the 1970's. The language is noteworthy for being a documented case of language birth ex nihilo, and has some 3,000 speakers. As always, when discussing sign languages, I think it is prudent to reinforce the fact that sign languages are notsimply signed versions of spoken languages, or even related to spoken languages at all. American Sign is not intelligible with British Sign, and neither are grammatically similar to English at all. Before the 1970's there was no deaf community in Nicaragua. Deaf people would speak isolated home or village signs. In 1977 a school for the deaf was opened. This school did not create the sign language, in fact it was focused on teaching lip reading and Spanish, endeavors it was not terribly successful at. What it did create was a community of deaf children, all interacting with one another. This created an environment under which the creation of the language was almost inevitable. A community with great need for communication, no pre-existing language, and many young developing minds. When the school struggled to produce the results it desired, it sought outside help and an American linguist studying ASL, Judy Kegl, was called in to help asses. What Judy found was something of a linguistic missing link. In spite of the teachers efforts the students were developing a true language from the mix of home signs and pantomime gestures they brought with them. Older students version of the language was less well developed, with signs being relatively static, while younger students were making use of much more spatial modulation, the sign language equivalent of inflections. Dr. Kegl was careful to avoid bringing ASL with her, and was thus able to help the students establish their language without replacing it. There is now a Nicaraguan school for the deaf manned by deaf professors fluent in their native sign. Study of the development of this language has contributed greatly to our understanding of language acquisition in children and the ongoing debate over whether or not language is innate or learned human behavior.