I just read the Talking Hands by Margalit Fox 2007. I never knew it before, but theres thousands of signed languages out there, some of which, especially the major ones, being of unknown and unverifiable antiquity. Signed languages are usually like Navajo and conjugate verbs for Subject, Object, and an amazing variety of aspects, represented by performing verb motions with various speeds and wigglings and such. And none of this was known before about 1970. Before that, no linguists studied any sign language in any depth. The most accessible of them is ASL, yet most ASL dictionaries are unaware of the linguistic complexity of sign languages. Its very clearly a subconcious phenomenon, as is all language. WOW. The book is well written but is a bit heavy on the side of theoretical controversies.
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 04:39:28 +0000