Getting the Upper Hand on Sign Language Families: Historical Analysis and AnnotationMethods

Abstract

Sign languages are conventionalized linguistic systems that vary across communities of users and change as they are transmitted across generations or come into contact with other languages, signed or spoken. That is, the social and linguistic phenomena that are familiar from the study of spoken language families and historical linguistic analysis of spoken languages are also active in sign languages. The study of sign language families and histories, however, is not as developed as in spoken languages. Here, we discuss the methodological and circumstantial factors contributing to this disparity. We also report on the preliminary stages of a long-term, large-scale study of sign language fami- lies. We summarize the family structures suggested by a historical records analysis of 24 sign languages. Given the limitations of this approach for sign languages, however, we also propose a lexicostatistic analysis using contemporary quantitative methods and de- scribe annotation tools and strategies that can facilitate this approach. This research is aimed at improving our understanding of the historical pressures that are shared across language modalities as well as the quantitative and qualitative differences that may exist in the diachrony of sign versus speech.