Regularity and Genetic Relatedness in Signed Language

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The scientific study of signed languages has provided insights into the human capacity for language and differences between spoken and signed modalities. Studies reveal that all human languages change over time—regardless of modality. There is a large body of generalizations about spoken language change, which are typically framed as relevant for human language generally. However, the vast majority of the proposed general features of human language change were developed without consideration of signed languages. In spoken language, the sounds that combine to form words often change in regular and systematic ways over time, and these regular sound changes form the empirical basis for language families. Signed languages have units that combine to form signs, but no research has been done to clarify whether regular sound change has a correlate in signed languages, or if regular language change is unique to spoken languages. This project will be the first to rigorously explore this question. It will also provide research experience to several undergraduates and professional development to a postdoctoral associate.The three-year project will investigate linguistic change and relationships among 13 signed languages. It will develop a database of signs for 207 basic concepts in each language, drawing on online and print dictionaries. Deaf native signers of the languages will check the signs and provide missing entries. Each sign will be transcribed to allow both manual and automated comparisons of the signs’ phonological units across all languages. The dataset will then be evaluated using two methodologies: the traditional Comparative Method (CM), and network-based and Bayesian phylogenetic approaches. If the CM yields evidence of regular and recurring correspondences, the researchers will identify cognates and reconstruct earlier stages of the languages. Lack of such correspondences will provide evidence that some aspect of signed languages either inhibits or disguises the regular changes on which the CM depends. Quantitative phylogenetic approaches are complementary to the CM because they do not depend on regular change to assess patterns of similarity among languages.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.