Nicaraguan Sign Language

Language is the principal system of communication between humans. We use language as a way to convey our thoughts, feelings and to distinguish ourselves as part of a community. We use language to tell the next wave of generations about our past, present and future. By doing this, we instill the language native to us to our children and this cycle will continue over and again. Our children are exposed to the language at an early age and as they mature, they master their native tongue. We take this process for granted because we were fortunate enough to be surrounded by an environment rich in linguistic stimulation. But what happens when you aren't fortunate to have this type of stimulation? What do you do when you cannot hear language and because of this, not able to communicate with your family or people in the community? This paper is about the birth of a language by Nicaraguan deaf children who were once isolated but now given the chance to be among individuals just like them. I will show how the critical language learning period was essential to this birth and will I will provide research results to back this up. Deaf Nicaraguans needed a way to communicate and pass on their native language on to future generations. All they needed was a playground and friends.

During the time period of 1939-1979, the country of Nicaragua was ruled by a military dictatorship. During this era, there were no established deaf communities. "The lack of unifying national educational system, societal attitudes that isolated deaf individuals prevented contact and formation of a deaf community" (Senghas & Coppola 2001). Many deaf individuals lived in isolation because they had no contact with other deaf individuals. They were usually the only member of their family who was deaf. The only means of communication with their families and friends were very basic home signs and gestural systems. Since there were no educational options for the deaf, they did not receive any type of rich input during the language learning critical period. Every single one of them was language ready but did not have access to it during the critical period. Because of this, their basic home signs or "mimicas" was the only thing they were able to produce on their own. These "mimicas" lacked syntax and grammar rules necessary for language. In order for the deaf individuals to get the education they need, they needed to be taken out of isolation. More importantly the children needed to be brought together with people who can help and with others with disabilities just like theirs.

In 1979, the Sandinista Revolution overthrew the military dictatorship. One of their main goals was to implement universal education. Special education schools were being incorporated into the national school system. This allowed the new government to enhance the lives of deaf children. They brought deaf village children into the capital city of Managua to enroll them in school an end their isolation. In 4 years, there were two schools that enrolled more than 400 deaf students. "For the first time, a community existed, with continuity from childhood through early adulthood."(Senghas & Coppola 2001). The schools allowed for many deaf children to be together at one time and enabled them to stay together as a group for many years in a row. This was very important because now there were opportunities for contact between deaf adults and children. If one generation developed some valuable communication, they would be able to pass it on to the next generation. Now the deaf children of Nicaragua finally had the educational and social opportunities that other "normal" children had.

With the schools filled with children, now came the daunting task of teaching them a language. Most, if not all the children enrolled at the schools had parents who were not hearing impaired. This meant that none of the children encountered any adults who knew how to sign. Because of this, the school took an oral approach to the children's learning. So the teachers at the school focused on teaching the children how to read lips and speak Spanish. The students were not able to use their "mimicas" inside the classroom. The only types of signing they taught the children were to use their fingers to spell out the alphabet. This proved to be a failure. The children were not able to understand the concept of Spanish. They seemed to show very little interest in learning a language that was being forced upon them. Each student had their own version of mimicas that they used with their families and they continued to use them at school. The teachers did not understand their gestures and this lead to a lack of communication with the students. The teachers saw the continual use of their simple signs and lack of grasping Spanish as a huge disappointment.

The students were prohibited to use their hand gestures in the classroom but were allowed to use them in the playground and the bus ride home. Recall that each student had their own hand gestures and were different from each other. Regardless, they began to communicate with each other in their own way. They began to combine the home signs and mimicas that they learned from each other and began to piece together a vocabulary. The more interactions they had, the more they were able to refine each gesture and build upon it. For example, if a student had a gesture to signify "he was thirsty" and another student had another way to say the very same thing, they were able to systematically take those gestures and make a universal sign so that everyone in the school could understand it. Their sign vocabulary grew increasingly large as the years went on. This process continued to develop as the children began to forge relationships with one another and stories were being shared. Their signs became more organized. The structure of signed sentences became more intricate than the usual mimicas they were accustomed to using. The first group of children who were enrolled at the school had created a language built upon their own original home signs. They developed what was described by researchers Kegl & Iwata as a partially-crystallized