Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday June 20 2017, @08:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the guess-what-this-gesture-means dept.

Languages, like human bodies, come in a variety of shapes—but only to a point. Just as people don't sprout multiple heads, languages tend to veer away from certain forms that might spring from an imaginative mind. For example, one core property of human languages is known as duality of patterning: meaningful linguistic units (such as words) break down into smaller meaningless units (sounds), so that the words sap, pass, and asp involve different combinations of the same sounds, even though their meanings are completely unrelated.

It's not hard to imagine that things could have been otherwise. In principle, we could have a language in which sounds relate holistically to their meanings—a high-pitched yowl might mean "finger," a guttural purr might mean "dark," a yodel might mean "broccoli," and so on. But there are stark advantages to duality of patterning. Try inventing a lexicon of tens of thousands of distinct noises, all of which are easily distinguished, and you will probably find yourself wishing you could simply re-use a few snippets of sound in varying arrangements.

What to make, then, of the recent discovery of a language whose words are not made from smaller, meaningless units? Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL) is a new sign language emerging in a village with high rates of inherited deafness in Israel's Negev Desert. According to a report led by Wendy Sandler of the University of Haifa, words in this language correspond to holistic gestures, much like the imaginary sound-based language described above, even though ABSL has a sizable vocabulary.

To linguists, this is akin to finding a planet on which matter is made up of molecules that don't decompose into atoms. ABSL contrasts sharply with other sign languages like American Sign Language (ASL), which creates words by re-combining a small collection of gestural elements such as hand shapes, movements, and hand positions.

Researchers theorize the sign language hasn't re-used simpler elements to create new words because gestures can accommodate a wider range of variation than sounds can, such that many more unique signifiers are possible.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday June 21 2017, @01:07AM (2 children)

    by frojack (1554) on Wednesday June 21 2017, @01:07AM (#528822) Journal

    If you count variations on African "click" languages, you might get up to 150 or so sounds humans could theoretically use

    From what I've read much of the clicks are decorative flourishes and don't convey meaning. Few if any words are composed only of clicks. There are phonemes before or after the click, not both, and clicks aren't embedded, and almost never appear consecutively. From listening to it, I doubt there are more than 10 different clicks.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 21 2017, @01:40AM (1 child)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Wednesday June 21 2017, @01:40AM (#528835) Journal

    From what I've read, . . . Few if any words are composed only of clicks. . . . From listening to it,

    Make up your mind, froj! Can't have it both ways! And once again, it is just amazing to know what you doubt.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday June 21 2017, @04:13PM

      by frojack (1554) on Wednesday June 21 2017, @04:13PM (#529075) Journal

      Why does it supprise you that I have both read about these languages and listened to them?
      We have this wonderful thing called the internet. You should try it sometime. It even reaches to your parents basement.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.