We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Yet another market failure It is so bloody infuriating when some ungrateful, selfish kids simply refuse to acknowledge the fact that they are ‘disadvantaged’:
Scientists have witnessed the birth of a new language, one invented by deaf children.
A study published today shows that a sign language that emerged over two decades ago now counts as a true language.
It began in a school for the deaf in Managua, Nicaragua, founded in 1977. With instruction only in lip-reading and speaking Spanish, neither very successful, and no exposure to adult signing, the children were left to their own devices.
Preposterous nonsense. They must be making it up. It is totally beyond question that things like this can only happen by means of an appropriate legislative framework, an appointed governing body and generous levels of public funding.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Managua, Nicaragua? Has the song “Rum and Coca-Cola” influenced this report?
Oh god, the tyranny of the handicapped! Now operas will have to have a madly signing, madly distracting attention-seeker for deaf people who have inexplicably come to the soundfest of an opera, signing in NSL as well as regular sign language. Two sets of signers, probably at times outnumbering the legitimate singers (not signers) on stage.
It is of absolutely no consequence to my life that there are 800 people ‘worldwide’ but who all reside in Nicaragua, who have developed their own sign language.
This is a ‘dog bites man’ story. Humans are highly social animals. They want to communicate and they figure out ways to do so. What’s new?
What David was suggesting is new is an acknowledgement that young people can make things up for themselves without official help or indoctrination. That they found a means of communication that suited them, rather than struggling in reliance on the relatively useless assistance of the state.
What worries me about this story is the dire influence of Chomsky in the last sentence: “The new language bears remarkable similarities to other languages, supporting the theory that children are born with an innate understanding of language learning.
Nah, it still does not support nativist theory, for the simple reason that the children did not grow up in a language vacuum; there were signs and languages around them that they took their cues from.
TWG
Guy Herbert is worried about ‘the dire influence of Chomsky in the … sentence: “The new language bears remarkable similarities to other languages, supporting the theory that children are born with an innate understanding of language learning.”‘ It’s a truism that human beings have an innate ‘understanding of language learning’; it’s one thing that differentiates people from stones, tomatoes and macaques. Chomsky deserves the credit for achieving clarity about this when Skinnerian behaviourism was dominant. I presume (haven’t read the article) the new sign language can be readily learnt by other children; it won’t be able to do this without ‘remarkable similarities’ to other natural languages.
The Wobbly Guy says ‘it still does not support nativist theory, for the simple reason that the children did not grow up in a language vacuum; there were signs and languages around them that they took their cues from.’ It would be a pretty drastic theory that proposed that children brought up in some desert devoid of human action could spontaneously develop language. The point is that human children respond to _cues_, they don’t _imitate_ (the point of the ‘cue’ metaphor is that an actor responds to a prompter’s cue with a speech, not a repetition of the cue). Complex machinery is needed to produce language on the basis of experience. It’s obvious, but understanding it is the benign part of Chomsky’s legacy.
The LAD thingy again? So, the stimulus that was their environment flicked their LAD switches and enabled them to communicate using a new language they created themselves? And create new novel structures of their own?
All that may yet be true, but Chomsky’s contribution of the natural language acquisition ability is just about his only one. The rest of it, especially the UG part, is bunk. Just how similar is the sign language of the children compared to a language on the other side of the world? What are their ‘deep structures’, if any? Not identical, I wager.
Well, if you come right down to it, I suppose all languages are similar in that they have nouns, verbs, and often adjectives. Beyond that, it’s a tossup, especially when considering the grammatical structure. To say that NSL is similar to other languages makes me want to laugh. Sure, everything is similar enough, when you come right down to it.
TWG
For those who find this story interesting, I strongly recommend Oliver Sacks’ “Seeing Voices”. A fascinating and enlightening read. The story of how deaf people have managed to create and sustain their own language in the face of official repression until very recently, is actually rather inspiring and has definite libertarian undertones to it.
What worries me about this story is the dire influence of Chomsky in the last sentence:
As long as Chomsky sticks to language learning, there is no problem. I am not qualified to comment on his linguistics theories. Its when he starts spouting about politics that its a problem.
Louis Braille went to France’s national School for the Blind and eventually became a teacher there. He heard about a system of “night-writing” used by French troops who needed to pass each other messages in silence in the dark. He spent several years improving it into the Braille system and began teaching it to his blind pupils (no pun intended). They liked the ability to take notes in class and to pass messages which none of the teachers except Braille could read.
When the school administration found out, they ordered Braille to stop teaching his writing system and that all books printed in Braille to be burned. Too late! By then the boys who had learned the Braille system were graduated and were writing each other letters in Braille. Publishers heard of the Braille system and began publishing books in Braille, which is now the world standard for written material for blind people. If the new sign language for the deaf really is an improvement, it will catch on no matter what government opposes it just like the Braille system. If not, it will soon be as dead as Esperanto.
Thanks TWG, glad someone else is a skeptic about Chomsky’s linguistics. IMNESHO he’s more credible when he turns to politics.
Samizdata has it exactly right: “an appropriate legislative framework, an appointed governing body and generous levels of public funding.” Just like when oral language developed under the funding of the Trans-Veldt legislative council and the supervision of PSPSW, the Professional Society of Paleolithic Social Workers.
I like the fact that this happened under the evil, brutal Somoza dictatorship, unlike the cuddly leftist Sandinista regime that follwed in 1979. Nice to know that even disabled people flourish better under a pro-West military dictatorship than under Socialism.
Gustava and others,
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the deaf children were gathered into two Managua schools by the socialist Sandinistas in ’79 and that played a major role in the language development.