Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua
Nicaraguan Sign Language
Language isolate (deaf-community sign language, emerged 1970s-1980s)
Also known as: ISN, Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua, Nicaraguan Sign
Nicaraguan Sign Language (ISN — Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua) is the most thoroughly studied case of a brand-new natural language emerging in real time. Before 1977, deaf Nicaraguans were dispersed and largely lacked a shared language. Starting in 1977 and accelerating after the 1980 Sandinista literacy campaign, the new government concentrated several hundred deaf children at two schools in Managua (the Melania Morales special-education centre and an associated vocational school). The first cohort developed a rudimentary contact-pidgin homesign system; each subsequent generation of children — taking that input from older peers and applying their native language-acquisition capacity — added grammatical structure (verb agreement, spatial reference, classifier morphology, hierarchical phrase structure). By the early 1990s a fully structured natural language with native signers had emerged from scratch — an event linguists had never previously been able to observe. Judy Kegl, Ann Senghas, and Marie Coppola's longitudinal research (collected in Kegl, Senghas & Coppola 1999; Senghas, Kita & Özyürek 2004 Science) documented the generation-by-generation grammaticalization and made ISN a touchstone case for theories of language emergence, the language faculty, and the role of children in language change. The signing community now numbers ~3000-5000 across Managua and outlying regions, with formal recognition by Nicaraguan law (Ley 675, 2009).
Where it is spoken
31 core words in Nicaraguan Sign Language
Water
—
/—/
Fire
—
/—/
Sun
—
/—/
Moon
—
/—/
Star
—
/—/
Mother
—
/—/
Father
—
/—/
I
—
/—/
You
—
/—/
Name
—
/—/
Eye
—
/—/
Hand
—
/—/
Heart
—
/—/
Love
—
/—/
Tree
—
/—/
House
—
/—/
Dog
—
/—/
Cat
—
/—/
Eat
—
/—/
Drink
—
/—/
One
—
/—/
Two
—
/—/
Hello
—
/—/
Thank you
—
/—/
Good
—
/—/
Sources
- Kegl, Judy, Ann Senghas & Marie Coppola (1999) "Creation through contact: Sign language emergence and sign language change in Nicaragua" in DeGraff (ed.) Language Creation and Language Change (MIT Press)
- Senghas, Ann, Sotaro Kita & Asli Özyürek (2004) "Children creating core properties of language" Science 305:1779-1782
- Pyers, J., A. Shusterman, A. Senghas, E. Spelke & K. Emmorey (2010) "Number cognition and the language of Nicaraguan signers" Psychological Science 21:1027-1035
- Glottolog: Nicaraguan Sign Language
- Ethnologue: ncs
Words compared
Compared with related Language isolate (deaf-community sign language, emerged 1970s-1980s) languages
| Meaning | Nicaraguan Sign Language | Tartessian | Liburnian | Goguryeo | Messapic | Proto-Hmong-Mien | Meroitic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Water | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | 買 /*mai/ | — /—/ | *ʔuwm /ʔuwm/ | 𐦠𐦶 /ato/ |
| Fire | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Sun | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | 𐦨𐦯 /ˈmasa/ |
| Moon | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Star | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Mother | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Father | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | ana /ˈana/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| I | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| You | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Name | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Eye | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Hand | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Heart | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Love | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Tree | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| House | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Dog | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Cat | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Eat | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Drink | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| One | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Two | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | *ʔwei /ʔwei/ | — /—/ |
| Hello | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Thank you | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
| Good | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ | — /—/ |
Part of LangMap — a linguistic visualization project. This is a static, crawlable summary; the interactive maps offer pronunciation audio, filters, and a globe view.