Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals About the Mind (edition 2008)

Half of this book is the story of a group of linguists during a three-day field-studies visit to the village of Al-Sayyid. The village is interesting to linguists because a lot of deaf people were born and raised there (about 4% of the population) - and this is the third generation of deaf inhabitants. The villagers have developed an indigenous sign language, and both deaf and hearing people there use it. So, it is a relatively young language.

The other half of the book is a history of signing as it was recognized as a language system in its own right, and what sign languages tell researchers about language and the mind. It also talks about how pidgin languages arise, how the next generation of children turn that into a creole language, and so on. There is an explanation of the Forbidden Experiment (that is, the supposed way of learning about the acquisition of language by isolating children without any language, until they invent their own). But for deaf children, that is a situation that does happen occasionally. And it seems to have happened in this village, 3 generations ago.

It is a decently fast read, it talks clearly about the current state of language and mind studies, and the tale of studying language in the field, in the village of Al-Sayyid, is interesting. Recommended. ( )

I learned a lot about language, both sign and spoken, by reading this book. I especially found the chapter on the brain very interesting as linguists learn how signers perceive signs as language and not just movements through space. ( )

This book is seemingly about an isolated Bedouin village in Israel where most of the residents are deaf (due to genetics and intermarriage). Therefore, their sign language has apparently developed on its own without outside influences.

I had hoped to learn more about the cultural aspects of the people of this village--their day-to-day lives and that they are Arabic/Muslims in Israel. But rather, this book focused far more on the linguistics of sign language--and actually emphasized the linguistics of American Sign Language over sign language in general.

I would recommend this book for people who are interested in the linguistics of Sign Language (or linguistics in general), but not for people who are interested in the cultural aspects of either this village, or of deaf culture in general. The author does not totally ignore cultural aspects; it's just that she focuses more on linguistics. ( )