This is likely a response to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10612447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10612447 The Nicaraguan Sign Language (ISN)[0]

This is likely a response to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10612447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10612447 The Nicaraguan Sign Language (ISN)[0] is an incredibly interesting phenomenon, demonstrating at least that humans will find a way to use language regardless of whether or not a culture of language exists around them, provided that they have the opportunity to do so early enough. Does it confirm that language capacity is innate, that Chomsky's "language organ" (I'm sure he rues the day he ever used that phrase; he's been trying to clarify what he meant for sixty years) exists? It's not the only occurrence of this sort that is known but it's the first that was documented as it happened. (Hawaiian Creole English also arose among children in relatively recent times, but its documentation is oblique, consisting mostly of recorded complaints about a new and obviously unacceptable manner of speaking among "today's youth".) It's important to keep in mind that these kids were not taught the language, they developed it on their own because they had no real language. They had ways of communicating, of course, through mimicas, but fundamentally humans are unsatisfied with merely making their needs known. Language—the movement of thought from one skull to another—is a huge part of what we are. It's a fascinating story, but there are better tellings of it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language