Birth of a new language

from Witness History · host BBC World Service

In the early 1980s deaf children in Nicaragua invented a completely new sign language of their own.It was a remarkable achievement, which allowed experts a unique insight into how human communication develops.In 2020, Mike Lanchin spoke to an American linguist Judy Shepard-Kegl, who documented this process.(Photo: Sign language class in Nicaragua. Credit: INTI OCON/AFP via Getty Images)

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Aug 2, 2023

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Birth of a new language

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