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RETURN TO THE WORLD SCIENCE HOME PAGE Children can create languages nearly from scratch, researchers find Posted
Sept.
16,
2004
In
research
that
could
shed
light
into
the
origins
of
language,
researchers
have
shown
that
children
can
create
language
nearly
from
scratch.
Over
the
past
35
years
at
a
school
for
the
deaf
in
Nicaragua,
children
have
developed
a
completely
new
sign
language,
researchers
say.
It
started
out
as
simple
gestures,
much
as
a
non-deaf
person
would
make
if
he
or
she
couldn’t
speak.
But
over
the
years
it
slowly
evolved
into
a
complex
system
of
signs,
the
researcher
say. The
researchers
studying
these
signs
say
the
language
has
striking
similarities
to
languages
worldwide.
This
suggests
that
children
give
language
its
most
fundamental,
universal
features
just
by
the
way
they
learn
it,
according
to
the
researchers.
Ann
Senghas
of
Columbia
University,
New
York,
and
colleagues
wrote
about
their
research
in
current
issue
of
the
research
journal
Science.
They
say
childrens'
brains
seem
to
use
an
approach
to
learning
that
can
turn
a
simple
communication
system
into
a
true
language
in
a
surprisingly
short
time.
Even
without
being
taught,
children
automatically
seek
out
rules
that
are
common
to
every
language
in
order
to
communicate,
Senghas
said.
This
learning
process
is
thus
powerful
enough
to
create
a
whole
new
language
from
raw
materials
such
as
gestures. The new language, now called Nicaraguan Sign Language or NSL, “has continued to expand and mature and is passed on from one group of children to the next,” writes Michael Siegal of the University of Sheffield, U.K., in a commentary in the journal. Its creation “has allowed unique insights into the essence of spoken language. NSL has evolved from a system of nonlinguistic gestures into a full sign language with its own grammar that continues to expand and mature. Consequently, because they have learned the language most recently, the youngest children in the NSL community are the most fluent signers.” * * * Send us a comment on this story
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