Everyone here spoke sign language

on YouTube ↗44m

" summary

A coastal New England enclave develops a community-wide sign system so that for ~300 years everyone — hearing and deaf — communicates fluently using what researchers call Martha's Vineyard Sign Language, rooted in an Old Kentish Sign Language brought by settlers. Deafness peaks at 1 in 25 vs 1 in 400 on the mainland, town meetings and fishing boats run with interpreters and signed procedure, the language feeds into early ASL, then declines as gene flow and oralist policies erase it.

AI-written summary · about

" chapters (14)

1. 0:00Introduction
2. 4:05Different perspectives on disability
3. 6:42Background
4. 13:35Geography
5. 15:50Genetics
6. 21:45Deafness
7. 25:22Codeswitching
8. 27:30Town meetings
9. 30:37Alexander Graham Bell
10. 31:28Oralism
11. 33:08Legacy of Marthas Vineyard
12. 34:13Preservation of Sign Language
13. 35:26Decline of Sign Language
14. 37:48Sign Language Evolution in Nicaragua

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