A small Bedouin tribe in Israel’s Negev Desert is giving scholars
a rare peek at the birth and evolution of language.
In the last three generations the Al-Sayyid village has, without
outside influence, created a unique sign language. The Al-Sayyid
Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL) is used both by hearing and deaf members
of the tightly-knit community, report researchers in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences.
“When we first came to Al-Sayyid, I was impressed immediately by how
sophisticated the language was. This is not an ad hoc, spur-of-the-moment
communication,” says Carol Padden, ’83, UCSD professor
of communication, who coauthored the study with colleagues from Stony
Brook University in New York and the University of Haifa in Israel.
Padden says although it arose only 70 years ago,
ABSL has already developed a distinct syntax, evident in the way
native signers
tell stories and describe actions. Sentences in ABSL follow a Subject-Object-Verb
order (Jill Jack kisses). Significantly, this SOV word order differs
from that found in other languages of the region, including Arabic
and Hebrew.
“The grammatical structure of the Bedouin sign language shows no influence
from either the dialect of Arabic spoken by hearing members of the
community or the predominant sign language in the surrounding area,
Israeli Sign Language,” Padden says. “Because ABSL
developed independently, it may reflect fundamental properties
of language in general.”
What distinguishes ABSL from other new languages
that have been reported and studied, such as Creoles and Nicaraguan
Sign Language,
is that
it grew within a socially stable,
existing community, arising spontaneously without any apparent
external influences.
The 3,500 strong Al-Sayyid Bedouin group was founded when a man
migrated from Egypt 200 years ago and married a local woman.
Two of the founder’s
five sons were born deaf and many villagers carry a recessive gene
for deafness. About 150 congenitally deaf individuals have been born
in the last three generations. They are fully integrated members
of the community, and their sign language is generally recognized
as the village’s second language.
“ABSL is transmitted within families across generations, and children
learn it without explicit instruction,” says Padden, who
was also born deaf into a deaf family.
A linguist by training, Padden has
written extensively about sign language and deaf culture. “ABSL,” she says, “is
the best analogue we have for studying how any new language is
born and
grows.” 
— Inga Kiderra
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