The aftemath of the civil war in Nicuragua brought together groups of deaf children in their late teens in vocational schools. They had learnt some signs individually at home but not standard signs and signing not taught at the schools. By converging home signs they created their own sign language which had no rules or structure. A younger group of children brought together at primary school refined the langauge, adding more signs and structure. Hearing Nicuraguans use gesture a lot with speech but cannot understand much of the sign language.
Children in homes where they have no contact with other deaf people do not develop sign language. To develop a new language there need to be other people with whom you want to communcate; it does not happen in isolation. There seems to be a correlation with the relationship between pidgins and creoles. Pidgins are rudimentary langauges developed when groups of people with different languages live close by and need to communicate; there is a lack of grammar, and no right or wrong way of using them. Creoles develop from pidgins and are a full language with grammar, structure and rules.
In the 1950s Chomsky suggested a biological component to the acquistion of language. This appears to be proved by the Nicuraguan experience. Between nought and seven years of age children are busy analysing language, taking it apart and using it, so this is the best time for the formation of a new language such as a creole. Between the ages of eight and fifteen this ability is gradually lost and langauges created at this age will tend more towards pidgin as the age of the users increases. From fifteen years old it is not so easy to acquire langauge skills, so pidgins only develop.
In Nicuragua it is likely that the older students created a pidgin sign language, which was then taught to the primary group who modified and extended it through the natural method of acquiring language into a creole.
From a BBC2 programme in 1997
