Why isn’t there a universal sign language? One that everyone around the world could learn so that they would be understood no matter where they lived, or travelled to? Who decided it was a better idea to have more than one?
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Someone else had a good explanation, but I’ll throw this in: the world wasn’t always as connected as it is now, and sign language much like spoken language would have developed regionally.
Certain cultures use different facial expressions and gestures. Those gestures may be similar to or exactly like a common sign in different sign languages. Picture a common gesture for why in a language being giving someone the middle finger. It’s not the case in reality but it illustrates the idea that innocuous gestures in one culture mean something entirely different in other cultures.
Also, different languages have different rhythms to them. So flowing from one sign to another in one language isn’t as smooth as something more purpose built.
Same reason there isn’t a universal spoken language or a universal written language.
And sign language users generally need to be fluent in reading and writing the local language, so it would be a pain to need to be fluent in two completely different base languages, when day to day you are only conversing with local people.
Because sign language was developed before the world was as small as it is now. Multiple sign languages were developed on their own. Just like spoken languages.
Now everyone learns the sign language used where they are born, and it would be a pain to invent or learn a brand new one just so a deaf person in the US could hypothetically talk to a deaf person in China. Just like spoken languages.
Also, sign language changes and develops over time. So even if you start from the same language over time people are naturally going to develop dialects, and those dialects can become their own languages. …Just like spoken languages.
You could be asking the same question about spoken or written languages. And it’s the same answers.
Why isn’t there a universal spoken language?
Why isn’t there a universal written language?
People make the mistake of thinking of sign language like “English, but with gestures”. It isn’t. It’s a group of languages, just like with spoken languages. There are different sign languages because different people in different places or different times developed different languages.
“We should make a universal sign language.”
“I agree, lets all use mine.”
“No, mine!”
“No, mine!”
For the exact same reason there isn’t one universal spoken language. The same people made the decision for both spoken and sign language.
And here is the obligatory “s”.
But really, it’s the exact same.
It would be impossible to make a universal language with as many types of grammar and culturally unique concepts as there are in all of the world’s languages. No one could possibly learn it.
Sign language isn’t a modern invention, it wasn’t decided that it was better to have more than one. This is the same as saying “who decided it was a better idea to have more than one spoken language?”
As an interesting aside. a spoken language called “esperanto” that was intended to be universal was invented in the late 1800s but obviously it never took off.
Why isn’t there a universal spoken language that everyone around the world could learn so they could e understood no matter where they lived or traveled to? Who decided it was a better idea to have more than one?
Esperanto exists. How many people speak it?
Everyone wants to use the language they learned when they grew up. People are reluctant to learn metric from inches. A completely different language is far more complicated than some numbers.
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