Getting the Upper Hand on Sign Language Families: Historical Analysis and AnnotationMethods

Abstract

Sign languages are conventionalized linguistic systems that vary across communities of users and change as they are transmitted across generations or come into contact with other languages, signed or spoken. That is, the social and linguistic phenomena that are familiar from the study of spoken language families and historical linguistic analysis of spoken languages are also active in sign languages. The study of sign language families and histories, however, is not as developed as in spoken languages. Here, we discuss the methodological and circumstantial factors contributing to this disparity. We also report on the preliminary stages of a long-term, large-scale study of sign language families. We summarize the family structures suggested by a historical records analysis of 24 sign languages. Given the limitations of this approach for sign languages, however, we also propose a lexicostatistic analysis using contemporary quantitative methods and describe annotation tools and strategies that can facilitate this approach. This research is aimed at improving our understanding of the historical pressures that are shared across language modalities as well as the quantitative and qualitative differences that may exist in the diachrony of sign versus speech.

Signs of Globalization: ASL Influence in the Lexicon of New Zealand Sign Language

“…This article reports in more detail on quantitative findings about use of ASL-concordant variants, and considers how lexical borrowing may be contributing to changing features of phonology and morphology. Our findings support the general observation that internal change apparently occurs more rapidly in signed than spoken languages, due to factors such as their shorter histories and differing patterns of transmission (Abner et al 2020).…”

“…Research on historical variation and change in signed languages suggests that signed languages are prone to more rapid internal change than spoken languages, being typically younger and less stable in patterns of transmission and use (Abner et al 2020). The results of our study suggest that NZSL is in a period of rapid absorption of new vocabulary, with a shift towards nontraditional linguistic resources, including ASL, evidenced by approximately 151 undocumented ASLconcordant variants identified in a scan of recent online NZSL texts.…”

Computational phylogenetics reveal histories of sign languages

“…We present phylogenetic inference on the following 19 sign languages: American, Austrian, British, Chinese, Czech, Estonian, French, German, Hong Kong, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Lithuanian, New Zealand, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Taiwan, and Ukrainian. We gathered video dictionary entries from each language for concepts on the 100-item modified Swadesh list (22) and used a web-based annotation tool (42,43) to construct a database of coded sign forms. [Coding was completed by trained sign language linguists (members of the research team), and interrater reliability kappa values are all above 0.71.]…”

Lexicostatistics of Malay and Malagasy Languages: Comparative Historical Linguistic Study

“…Both languages diverged from a protolanguage around 230-307 years ago. Abner et al (2020) reveal that the study of sign language families and histories is less advanced and suggest a lexicostatistic analysis utilizing modern quantitative techniques and discuss the tools and techniques for annotation that can make this approach easier. Another research on Austronesian language that is close to both Indonesian Language and Malagasy Language is conducted by Paul & Ralalaoherivony (2020) and Cole & Hermon (2018) which presented in a thorough investigation of the languages spoken in the Philippine territory of the Zambales Mountains, a lexicostatistic survey was carried out.…”