Did you know that each country has a different sign language? And they are not similar, even if the spoken languages of the respective countries sound similar. From Wikipedia:
On the whole, sign languages are independent of oral languages and follow their own paths of development. For example, British Sign Language and American Sign Language are quite different and mutually unintelligible, even though the hearing people of Britain and America share the same oral language. [...] Similarly, countries which use a single oral language throughout may have two or more sign languages; whereas an area that contains more than one oral language might use only one sign language.
To me this seems very irrational. I don’t understand the details, but from short reading of Wikipedia it seems that many sign languages have a common origin, and that for each country there was historically an institution defining and teaching the language; if there were more such institutions in the country, sometimes there were more languages. Why? If the sign language is so different from the spoken language, what’s the point of having a different sign language everywhere? I think it would be much better to keep the languages synchronized, so the deaf people would at least have an advantage of easy international communication.
(Once I thought about learning a sign language, just of curiosity, but this fact made a “trivial” inconvenience: which sign language should I learn? Slovakian? According to Wikipedia, it’s not even similar to Czech sign language, despite similar languages and shared history. American? Possibly most users. International?)
I think it would be much better to keep the languages synchronized, so the deaf people would at least have an advantage of easy international communication.
There is a story that a British ambassador once suggested to his Chinese counterpart that China should adopt the Roman alphabet, because it is much easier for schoolchildren to learn than the thousands of Chinese characters. European children learn the alphabet in kindergarten, whereas Chinese students are still learning new characters throughout the years of their education.
In response, the Chinese ambassador suggested that the peoples of Europe should all adopt the Chinese writing system. The “dialects” of Chinese are as dissimilar as Europe’s various “languages”, but their written form is largely mutually intelligible — so by adopting Chinese writing, all of Europe would have the advantage of easy international communication.
This story speaks about two different optimization criteria. If you optimize for having a small alphabet and easy “shape to sound conversion” for a given spoken language, then Roman alphabet or Cyrilics or Hangul is a good solution. (Although the English language succeeded in making the relation between shape and sound complicated.) If you optimize for having symbols with universal meaning, across different languages, then Chinese ideograms are a good solution. (But you have to choose: traditional or simplified.)
I don’t know what are the optimization criteria used for sign languages. Are you suggesting that e.g. American S.L. uses different optimization criteria than British S.L., which explains their differences?
Are you suggesting that e.g. American S.L. uses different optimization criteria than British S.L., which explains their differences?
Yes, but not in the way you mean. British Deaf kids learning BSL use the optimization criterion of communicating with the British Deaf community; American Deaf kids learning ASL use the optimization criterion of communicating with the American Deaf community. It’s the same reason that French kids learn French and not Tagalog. Sign language isn’t different from oral language that way.
The story isn’t just about two different optimization criteria. It’s about two different fake optimization criteria. We don’t actually select which language to learn (or teach to kids) based on features such as those that the ambassadors praise. We select which language to learn (or teach) based on what community we (or our kids) need to communicate with.
Did you know that each country has a different sign language? And they are not similar, even if the spoken languages of the respective countries sound similar. From Wikipedia:
To me this seems very irrational. I don’t understand the details, but from short reading of Wikipedia it seems that many sign languages have a common origin, and that for each country there was historically an institution defining and teaching the language; if there were more such institutions in the country, sometimes there were more languages. Why? If the sign language is so different from the spoken language, what’s the point of having a different sign language everywhere? I think it would be much better to keep the languages synchronized, so the deaf people would at least have an advantage of easy international communication.
(Once I thought about learning a sign language, just of curiosity, but this fact made a “trivial” inconvenience: which sign language should I learn? Slovakian? According to Wikipedia, it’s not even similar to Czech sign language, despite similar languages and shared history. American? Possibly most users. International?)
There is a story that a British ambassador once suggested to his Chinese counterpart that China should adopt the Roman alphabet, because it is much easier for schoolchildren to learn than the thousands of Chinese characters. European children learn the alphabet in kindergarten, whereas Chinese students are still learning new characters throughout the years of their education.
In response, the Chinese ambassador suggested that the peoples of Europe should all adopt the Chinese writing system. The “dialects” of Chinese are as dissimilar as Europe’s various “languages”, but their written form is largely mutually intelligible — so by adopting Chinese writing, all of Europe would have the advantage of easy international communication.
This story speaks about two different optimization criteria. If you optimize for having a small alphabet and easy “shape to sound conversion” for a given spoken language, then Roman alphabet or Cyrilics or Hangul is a good solution. (Although the English language succeeded in making the relation between shape and sound complicated.) If you optimize for having symbols with universal meaning, across different languages, then Chinese ideograms are a good solution. (But you have to choose: traditional or simplified.)
I don’t know what are the optimization criteria used for sign languages. Are you suggesting that e.g. American S.L. uses different optimization criteria than British S.L., which explains their differences?
Yes, but not in the way you mean. British Deaf kids learning BSL use the optimization criterion of communicating with the British Deaf community; American Deaf kids learning ASL use the optimization criterion of communicating with the American Deaf community. It’s the same reason that French kids learn French and not Tagalog. Sign language isn’t different from oral language that way.
The story isn’t just about two different optimization criteria. It’s about two different fake optimization criteria. We don’t actually select which language to learn (or teach to kids) based on features such as those that the ambassadors praise. We select which language to learn (or teach) based on what community we (or our kids) need to communicate with.