Rennellese Sign Language

Rennellese Sign Language is an extinct form of home sign documented from Rennell Island in 1974.[2] It was developed about 1915 by a deaf person named Kagobai and used by his hearing family and friends, but apparently died with him; he was the only deaf person on the island, and there never was an established, self-replicating community of signers. Accordingly, as of January 2016, its ISO 639-3 code has been proposed for retirement.[3]

Classification

Wittmann (1991)[4] proposed that RSL was a language isolate (a 'prototype' sign language), though one developed through stimulus diffusion from an existing sign language. However, his classification presupposes that it was a full language, which is almost certainly not the case, and Kuschel[2] (the only source of information about this communication system) cites no evidence to suggest that there was any contact with any sign language.

References

  1. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Rennellese Sign Language". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. 
  2. ^ a b Kuschel, Rolf (1974). A Lexicon of Signs from a Polynesian Outliner Island: A Description of 217 Signs as Developed and Used by Kagobai, the Only Deaf-Mute of Rennell Island (PDF). København: Københavns Universitet. pp. 187 pages. ISBN 9788750015062. Retrieved 2016-01-22. 
  3. ^ ISO 639-3 Registration Authority. "Request for Change to ISO 639-3 Language Code" (PDF). ISO 639-3. SIL International. Retrieved 23 January 2016. 
  4. ^ Wittmann, Henri (1991). "Classification linguistique des langues signées non vocalement." Revue québécoise de linguistique théorique et appliquée 10:1.215–88.[1]