Hostname: page-component-6bb9c88b65-x9fsb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-07-22T13:05:00.116Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sign languages are problematic for a gestural origins theory of language evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2005

Karen Emmorey
Karen Emmorey*
Affiliation:
Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA92037http://www-psy.ucsd.edu:80/~kemmorey
*
emmorey@salk.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Sign languages exhibit all the complexities and evolutionary advantages of spoken languages. Consequently, sign languages are problematic for a theory of language evolution that assumes a gestural origin. There are no compelling arguments why the expanding spiral between protosign and protospeech proposed by Arbib would not have resulted in the evolutionary dominance of sign over speech.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , April 2005 , pp. 130 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable