International Day of Sign Languages

  The study of sign language  provides a natural laboratory for isolating certain fundamental properties of human language apart from the modality in which it is transmitted. Doing so has confirmed the existence of purported language universals, such as a systematic sub-word level of structure , syntactic embedding and recursion , and particular types of complex word formation. It has also strengthened the claim that the acquisition of language by children is a natural and automatic process with a set timetable, pointing to some degree of genetic predisposition for the development of just such a system. Certain modality specific characteristics have also been found: a tendency for simultaneous layering of linguistic structure and particular types of grammatical constructions that are at once linguistic in the formal sense, and in some way iconic. 

  Poetry takes language far beyond its primary task of everyday communication. By artfully manipulating the forms and meanings of language, the poet conveys a particular or heightened understanding of human experience. Devices such as meter, rhyme, and alliteration may filter the meaningful content of a poem , in order to create an impression or focus an image in the mind of the audience . A conventional meaning may be intentionally distorted in such a way as to enhance the perspective the poet wishes to present. This union of language, culture, and art is found in some signing communities . We know of several accomplished deaf poets in the United States and Holland, and bring as an example of sign language poetry some work of Wim Emmerik from Amsterdam. Among the devices used by this poet are reiterative use of handshape, and a fluidity of style that results from the elimination of transitional movements. Entire poems may be characterized by one or two basic handshapes, such ...