Witnessing the birth of a new language

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2020

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the early 1980s deaf children in Nicaragua invented a completely new sign language of their own. It was a remarkable achievement, which allowed experts a unique insight into how human communication develops. Mike Lanchin has been speaking to American linguist Judy Shepard-Kegl, who documented this process and says "our belief is that you are born with a language-ready brain".

(Photo credit should read INTI OCON/AFP via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds. Choosing what to
0:32.1	watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:36.5	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:41.5	telly we share what we've been watching.
0:43.7	Cladie Aide!
0:45.7	Loads of games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:48.2	Lovely.
0:49.0	Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:51.2	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:54.7	searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds. Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service
1:08.7	real life stories told by the people who were there. I'm Mike Lanchin. And today we're going back to
1:15.7	the 1980s when deaf children in Nicaragua came up with a completely new sign
1:21.2	language. A remarkable achievement that allowed experts a unique insight into how communication develops. My little linguist brain looking at them signing to each other was going, okay here's,
1:39.4	oh this is happening, this is that rule, this is what's happening with the grammar. You could see the ease of communication. You could see the
1:47.5	understanding that they all understood each other. In the mid-1980's American linguist Judy Shepard Kegel was standing in a playground full of deaf children in Managua Nicaragua when she witnessed an exciting and enthralling development.
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