Just re-viewed the Horizon documentary about the emergence of Nicaraguan Sign Language. It's a fascinating story, about how kids in Nicaragua invented a new language. It happened after the Sandinistas brought deaf kids together for education after the revolution. Before the revolution, education was less of a priority and deaf folk were fairly isolated, communicating with basic gestures. When they were brought together, they communicated through an ad hoc gesture system, like a pidgin language. The younger kids quickly developed a full language based on these gestures. This is what linguists call 'creolisation'. The linguist who did most of the work on this is Judy Kegl, from the University of Southern Maine. Here is an article about it all (with links to other good sites).

What's really amazing, though, is that it seems pretty much all kids invent their first language rather than just learning the language of the grownups around them. Read about it here

There are some really good web resources on sign language.

This is a good resource for British Sign Language (BSL): http://www.british-sign.co.uk

This is a good one for American Sign Language (ASL): http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb

And this is just a good one: http://www.handspeak.com

Signstream ™ is a really good use of web technology. It's a database for showing annotated videos of signing: http://www.bu.edu/asllrp/SignStream

I could go on, but the last thing I'll tell you about for now is a really good monthly magazine for linguists, called Glot International: http://www.glotinternational.com/geninfo.htm

A recent issue of glot contained this fascinating article (in pdf format) by Neil Smith: Singing By The Dead

B-)