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The language instinct - the Bedouin version

The deaf community of the "Al Said" tribe of the Negev developed a unique sign language from scratch, in only 70 years

Sign Language. Illustration: shutterstock
Sign Language. illustration: 360b / Shutterstock.com

New languages ​​can develop consistent rules of grammar within one generation, according to a study of Israeli sign language published by the website of the prestigious journal Nature. In the "Abu El Said" Bedouin tribe, which lives in the Negev, northwest of Dimona, lives a very high concentration of people with hearing problems and out of a population of about 3,500 residents, about 150 are deaf. Founded 200 years ago, the deaf community has developed its sign language over the past 70 years, with no visible outside influence. This is the first documented example of a language evolving from scratch in such isolation.

Sentences in the sign language of "El Said" include the word order: subject-noun-verb (SOV), as in the sentence "I give an apple". The languages ​​spoken in Israel, Hebrew and Arabic, use the order SVO, meaning subject-verb-noun, as in the sentence "I give an apple". This is also the case in English - "'I give apple", but there are natural languages ​​where the order is SOV such as Japanese and Korean.

"We didn't expect grammar to develop so quickly, and we didn't think we'd see it in word order," says Carol Faden from the University of California, San Diego, who led the research and published its findings together with her colleagues in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science). The discovery raises the hypothesis that grammar appears at the very beginning of the development of spoken language. In written languages ​​it can take hundreds of years to develop a consistent grammar.

The rapid development of sign language has been studied before. Deaf people in Nicaragua have adopted a common sign language in the last 25 years, after a unique school system for the deaf was established. However, the Bedouins of the "El Said" tribe are the first group that was studied that developed a sign language without outside influence.

"The rapid progress of language is impressive," says Steven Pinker, a linguist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and author of the book "The Language Instinct." "The findings raise the possibility that the human brain has a motive for creating expressive language and grammar without the need for many generations of refinement and refinement."

On the contrast between the structure of sign language and the structures in the languages ​​spoken in Israel, he said: "These languages ​​also use this method from time to time. Even in archaic English such a use is made, for example in an expression
"With this ring, I thee wed" at the wedding ceremony. Therefore, he estimates that this language will also split and have examples of the use of both orders.

For information on the Nature website
The website of the umbrella organization of the disabled in Israel

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