Reuters: Deaf Children in Nicaragua Give Birth to New Language

[wildflower]

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Deaf children thrown together in a school in Nicaragua without any type of formal instruction invented their own sign language -- a sophisticated system that has evolved and grown, researchers reported on Friday.

Their observations show that children, not adults, are key to the evolution and development of language, the researchers report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

"It is the birth of a language," said Ann Senghas of Columbia University's Barnard College, who led the study.

more...

http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=6267627

[On the Road]

1. I'm in the Middle of "Seeing Voices" by Oliver Sacks

neurological and author of "Awakenings" and "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat."

"Seeing Voices" is about the deaf and language. It ties right into this story, and it's fascinating. A lot there on innate abilities and the relationship between learning a language and learning to think.

[bpilgrim]

2. clever little devils

us humans :evilgrin:

peace

[Melodybe]

3. That teared me up, what a beautiful story.

Thanks for posting

[LynzM]

4. That is really, really cool

Sad that no one was able to take the time earlier to teach them a structured language so that they could communicate with the rest of the community, but cool and amazing that they came up with their own language structure! I'd love to be able to go study something like that!

[David Zephyr]

5. Wow! This Blew Me Away.

Thank you, Wildflower for this story. :)

[truthisfreedom]

6. this is kinda creepy though. what if they never let anyone else in on it?

sounds like a movie plot. 8^)

[shadu]

7. wow!

"And, it seems, it is children who drive the evolution of language. "It is the child learners who are injecting the learning, the structure, into the language," Senghas said."