Eli5 Why are there different variants of sign language? Couldn’t one form become universal and be understood by all people regardless of language?

Question

Eli5 Why are there different variants of sign language? Couldn’t one form become universal and be understood by all people regardless of language?

In: Other

Answer 1

I read an article decades ago that covered multiple examples of communities of hearing-impaired creating sign languages for themselves. Might have been in Smithsonian Magazine. Given the variability of gesture over phonemes in spoken language – makes sense.