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Kata Kolok’s four color signs: white, black, red, and grue (blue-green).
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How do new languages develop systematic ways to talk about sensory experiences, such as color? To what extent is the evolution of color terms guided by societal factors? This article describes the color lexicon of a rural sign language called Kata Kolok that emerged approximately one and a half centuries ago in a Balinese village. Kata Kolok has fo...
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... it is the only sign exclusively used for color descriptions. The four color signs are illustrated by stills in Figure 1. ...
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Since pragmatic competence and grammatical competence are two distinct aspects of communicative competence (Bachman, 1990), a high level of grammatical competence may not lead to a high level of pragmatic competence; rather, it can be best developed through immersion in the target language. In this respect, this paper addresses three research quest...
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... This exploratory study aims to examine if there is support for the claim that certain sign languages may have more lexical variation than others by investigating lexical variation systematically across three different signing communities. As mentioned, community size, homogeneity, language age, and deaf education are some of the factors which have been suggested to affect the degree of lexical variation in sign languages (de Vos 2011;Meir et al. 2012;Meir & Sandler 2019;Tkachman & Hudson Kam 2020). ...
... It has been described as a language isolate with minimal contact to other signed and spoken languages (Marsaja 2008;Perniss & Zeshan 2008;de Vos 2012). A low degree of convergence has been found in core domains of the lexicon; specifically, Kata Kolok uses a small set of lexicalized signs for color and kinship terms (four color and three kinship signs, according to de Vos 2011de Vos , 2012, mirroring other small signing communities (e.g., Washabaugh 1986;Nyst 2007;Schuit 2014). Moreover, lexical preferences in Kata Kolok are influenced by whether signers are hearing or deaf (Mudd et al. 2020), and by gender, with male participants showing greater lexical uniformity than female participants in response to a picture description task (Mudd et al. 2021). ...
Claims have been made about the relationship between the degree of lexical variation and the social structure of a sign language community (e.g., population size), but to date there exist no large-scale cross-linguistic comparisons to address these claims. In this study, we present a cross-linguistic analysis of lexical variation in three signing communities: Kata Kolok, Israeli Sign Language (ISL) and British Sign Language (BSL). Contrary to the prediction that BSL would have the lowest degree of lexical variation because it has the largest population size, we found that BSL has the highest degree of lexical variation across the entire community (i.e., at the global level). We find, however, that BSL has the lowest degree of lexical variation at the local level, i.e., within clusters of participants who group most similarly lexically. Kata Kolok and ISL, on the other hand, exhibit less of a distinction between variation at the global and local levels, suggesting that lexical variation does not pattern as strongly within subsets of these two communities as does BSL. The results of this study require us to reassess claims made about lexical variation and community structure; we need to move towards an approach of studying (lexical) variation which treats communities equally on a theoretical level and which respects the unique social-demographic profile of each community when designing the analysis by using a community-centered approach.
... An opposite case has also been reported. Kata Kolok-a rural sign language of North Bali is used by a community with complex culturally embedded color technology, yet it has a rudimentary color lexicon with low codability and low efficiency ( Fig. 1 and Fig. 2) (de Vos, 2011). Together, these extreme cases show technology by itself is not a decisive force in shaping color language. ...
... They also point to the complex nature of color term evolution and the fact that the same factors can be associated with different outcomes depending on the broader context. For instance, Kata Kolok has been argued to lack the pressure to develop a more complex color lexicon due to the small size and tightly knit nature of the community, but this is not true of many spoken language communities of similar size and structure which have evolved larger color systems (de Vos, 2011). Similarly, language contact is not a significant evolutionary pressure for the Kata Kolok color lexicon, but it has been a crucial change-driving force for numerous other languages, including the previously reported cases of Kilivila (Senft, 2011), Gyeli (Grimm, 2014), and cases of Mlabri, Jahai, and Semaq Beri discussed here. ...
The evolution of basic color terms in language is claimed to be stimulated by technological development, involving technological control of color or exposure to artificially colored objects. Accordingly, technologically “simple” non-industrialized societies are expected to have poor lexicalization of color, i.e., only rudimentary lexica of 2, 3 or 4 basic color terms, with unnamed gaps in the color space. While it may indeed be the case that technology stimulates lexical growth of color terms, it is sometimes considered a sine qua non for color salience and lexicalization. We provide novel evidence that this overlooks the role of the natural environment, and people's engagement with the environment, in the evolution of color vocabulary. We introduce the Maniq—nomadic hunter-gatherers with no color technology, but who have a basic color lexicon of 6 or 7 terms, thus of the same order as large languages like Vietnamese and Hausa, and who routinely talk about color. We examine color language in Maniq and compare it to available data in other languages to demonstrate it has remarkably high consensual color term usage, on a par with English, and high coding efficiency. This shows colors can matter even for non-industrialized societies, suggesting technology is not necessary for color language. Instead, factors such as perceptual prominence of color in natural environments, its practical usefulness across communicative contexts, and symbolic importance can all stimulate elaboration of color language.
... Meir et al., 2010;De Vos and Zeshan, 2012). Because the users of these sign languages live in smaller communities, they are under less pressure to devise lexical means of indicating colors (De Vos, 2011). This is similar to the situation of cross-signers, who also exploit pointing to a large extent. ...
... That is to say, Sagara and Zeshan (2016) show that emerging rural sign languages such as Adamorobe Sign Language (AdaSL) and Kata Kolok (KK) tend to have only the colors on the left side of the hierarchy, whereas larger urban sign languages such as Finnish Sign Language also have the terms on the right (such as brown for example). Furthermore, Adamorobe Sign Language has just one manual sign with three different Twi mouthings for the three basic colors "black, " "white, " and "red" (Nyst, 2007) as shown in Figure 1; Kata Kolok has separate signs for these and for yellow, as well as a single sign for "grue", a color term that includes both shades of green and shades of blue (De Vos, 2011). To express colors for which they have no lexical sign, both sign languages tend to use pointing to objects in the vicinity. ...
... In addition to summarizing patterns and constraints in color term development, Berlin and Kay's (1969) hierarchy is useful as a framework for predicting the relative iconic-indexical motivation of color terms (De Vos, 2011;Sagara and Zeshan, 2016;Palfreyman, 2019). One main reason for less iconicity on the right side of the basic color term hierarchy is that many sign languages tend to use fingerspelling or borrowing to create these signs. ...
Cross-signing—the emergence of an interlanguage between users of different sign languages—offers a rare chance to examine the evolution of a natural communication system in real time. To provide an insight into this process, we analyse an annotated video corpus of 340 minutes of interaction between signers of different language backgrounds on their first meeting and after living with each other for several weeks. We focus on the evolution of shared color terms and examine the role of different selectional pressures, including frequency, content, coordination and interactional context. We show that attentional factors in interaction play a crucial role. This suggests that understanding meta-communication is critical for explaining the cultural evolution of linguistic systems.
... de Vos (2011) suggests that a high degree of variation at the lexical level may be characteristic of sign languages used in communities with a small population size and a high degree of shared context. Here, we refer to sign languages in such communities as shared sign languages, following Nyst (2012). ...
... In contrast, populations with many different cultural contexts do not retain the high degree of lexical variation present in language emergence; instead, because these populations cannot rely on iconic mappings between form and culturally salient features, the language becomes more uniform overtime. Overall, these results provide support for the idea that shared context facilitates a high degree of lexical variation (de Vos 2011;Meir et al. 2012). ...
It has been suggested that social structure affects the degree of lexical variation in sign language emergence. Evidence from signing communities supports this, with smaller, more insular communities typically displaying a higher degree of lexical variation compared to larger, more dispersed and diverse communities. Though several factors have been proposed to affect the degree of variation, here we focus on how shared context, facilitating the use of iconic signs, facilitates the retention of lexical variation in language emergence. As interlocutors with the same background have similar salient features for real world concepts, shared context allows for the successful communication of iconic mappings between form and culturally salient features (i.e., the meaning specific to an individual based on their cultural context). Because in this case the culturally salient features can be retrieved from the form, there is less pressure to converge on a single form for a concept. We operationalize the relationship between lexical variation and iconic affordances using an agent-based model, studying how shared context and also population size affects the degree of lexical variation in a population of agents. Our model provides support for the relationship between shared context, population size and lexical variation, though several extensions would help improve the explanatory power of this model.
... Washabaugh 1986;Meir et al. 2012). Multiple explanations have been suggested to account for this, including the lack of pressure to converge on linguistic symbols due to high common ground (de Vos 2011;Meir et al. 2012). Morgan (2015) observes that iconic motivations themselves are a locus of variation in KSL. ...
Sign language lexicons incorporate phonological specifications. Evidence from emerging sign languages suggests that phonological structure emerges gradually in a new language. In this study, we investigate variation in the form of signs across 20 deaf adult signers of Kata Kolok, a sign language that emerged spontaneously in a Balinese village community. Combining methods previously used for sign comparisons, we introduce a new numeric measure of variation. Our nuanced yet comprehensive approach to form variation integrates three levels (iconic motivation, surface realisation, feature differences) and allows for refinement through weighting the variation score by token and signer frequency. We demonstrate that variation in the form of signs appears in different degrees at different levels. Token frequency in a given dataset greatly affects how much variation can surface, suggesting caution in interpreting previous findings. Different sign variants have different scopes of use among the signing population, with some more widely used than others. Both frequency weightings (token and signer) identify dominant sign variants, i.e., sign forms that are produced frequently or by many signers. We argue that variation does not equal the absence of conventionalisation. Indeed, especially in micro-community sign languages, variation may be key to understanding patterns of language emergence.
... Por questões de espaço, neste artigo não poderemos explorar as estratégias sintáticas que ativam uma interpretação ou outra do sinal. A Cena não possui sinais para os termos que designam cores básicas na língua, no entanto, possui dois sinais para tons de pele, a saber, NEGRA e BRANCA, ficando assim abaixo da média de outras LSEs que possuem pelo menos três ou quatro sinais para as cores básicas como tem sido reportado nos estudos de De Vos (2011) e Adone et al. (2012. Contudo, a exemplo de outras LSEs, a Cena emprega o sinal de PELE como uma estratégia para se ativar o campo semântico relacionado a cores e, em seguida, apontar para algum objeto que possua a cor desejada, ou seja, a estratégia da apontação não lexical precedida do sinal PELE é a estratégia mais comum para se referir a cores pelos falantes de Cena. ...
Este texto apresenta uma descrição preliminar da estrutura linguística da Cena, uma língua de sinais emergente do interior do Piauí, falada/sinalizada por aproximadamente 30 pessoas. É classificada como uma língua de sinais compartilhada porque também é utilizada por pessoas ouvintes. A Cena é uma das línguas minoritárias do Brasil e é uma língua compartilhada por surdos e ouvintes da localidade Várzea Queimada. Descrevemos aspectos do léxico, fonologia, morfologia, sintaxe, e algumas questões de variação encontradas nessa língua, apontando para várias direções em pesquisas futuras. O texto é útil para aqueles interessados na temática de língua de sinais emergentes e a questão da evolução e tipologia das línguas.
... In Yolngu Sign Language and Kata Kolok, languages used in small-scale communities where the location of everyone's home is common knowledge, a signed point toward a particular home refers to the person who lives in it (Bauer 2014; de Vos 2013).Among not only speakers of Yucatec Maya, but also signers of Yucatec Maya Sign Language, a point to the sky refers to the time of day when the sun is at that location (Le Guen and Pool Balam 2012; see also de Vos 2013). In young sign languages and more established ones alike, points to the hair, teeth and lips are regularly used to refer to the colors black, white, and red(de Vos 2011;Nonaka 2004;Woodward 1989; Zeshan and Sagara 2016). The human propensity toward developing metonymic reference is so great that even when homesigners get little exposure to metonymic pointing in gesture, they nevertheless develop it. ...
[opening paragraph] Human communication is composite (e.g., Clark 2016; Enfield 2009; Ferrara and Hodge 2018; Holler and Levinson 2019). It involves the voice, face, hands, and rest of the body. It integrates categorical elements and gradient ones; highly conventional and ad hoc forms; arbitrary symbols and motivated signals. This is true of spoken communication and it is true—in equal measure—of signed communication. Both speakers and signers stitch these different types of components into a seamless whole. Some of these components are historically considered a core part of language, others marginal, and still others are thought to be something else entirely—gestural, expressive, paralinguistic (for discussion, see, e.g., Dingemanse 2018; Goldin-Meadow and Brentari 2017; Müller 2018). Regardless of whether one considers the language/ non-language divide fundamental, fuzzy, or fictitious, there is widespread agreement that certain communicative phenomena haunt the boundaries in ways that prove revealing. Chief among these are cases where both speakers and signers make use of the same bodily raw material, but in putatively very different ways: flashes and furrows of the brow; imitations of actions; depictions of size, shape, and arrangement. Here, we analyze one of these similar- looking forms in detail: pointing. The case of pointing shows, first, how a single semiotic tool can be put to many uses and, second, how speakers and signers use this tool in some ways that are similar and other ways that are different.
... Поэтому лексические типологи, включающие жестовые языки в свои выборки, по возможности стараются «обходить стороной» семантические области, которые покрываются периферийными жестами. Так, например, термины цветообозначений, которые исследуются в [de Vos 2011;, покрываются либо ядерными жестами, либо заимствованиями из звучащих языков 3 . То же верно и для терминов родства, которые для жестовых языков проанализированы в работах Wilkinson 2009;. ...
This paper presents an analysis of the semantic fi eld of falling in Russian Sign Language (RSL). In this domain, RSL makes use of a particular group of signs usually referred to as ‘classifi er predicates’ [Zwitserlood 2012]. These signs are highly iconic and do not have correlates in spoken languages. Separate structural components of classifi er predicates, i.e. the handshape, the hand orientation, the trajectory and the direction of movement etc., describe diff erent aspects of falling. For example, the handshape determines the type of the trajector, and the direction of movement indicates the start versus end-point locations of the trajector. While some of these aspects are typically marked in both sign and spoken languages, others are unique for the languages of the visual modality. The paper gives a detailed description of the internal structure of the classifier predicates occurring in this semantic fi eld and discusses the implications these data provide for the theory of lexical typology. In particular, we explain the differences in lexicalization strategies between RSL and the spoken languages by two conceptualization modes RSL uses in this domain, i.e. the cognitive and the (purely) visual conceptualization. While the former is guided by cognitive processes and, therefore, is shared by sign and spoken languages, the latter is unique for the languages of the visual modality; it is responsible for the aspects of lexicalization based exclusively on the visual characteristics of the object/situation.
... (10) 18 Para uma discussão clássicas sobre níveis de iconicidade e arbitrariedade, ver Klima & Bellugi (1979, cap.1) Sinal à esquerda: CARRO/DIRIGIR ou SEGUNDA-FEIRA 19 Sinal à direita: LAVAR-OBJETOS ou SÁBADO A Cena não possui sinais para os termos que designam cores básicas na língua, no entanto possui dois sinais para tons de pele, a saber, NEGRA e BRANCA, ficando assim abaixo da média de outras LSEs que possuem pelo menos três ou quatro sinais para as cores básicas como tem sido reportado nos estudos de De Vos (2011) e Adone et al. (2012. Contudo, a exemplo de outras LSEs a Cena emprega o sinal de PELE como uma estratégia para se ativar o campo semântico relacionado a cores e, em seguida, apontar para algum objeto que possua a cor deseja, ou seja, a estratégia da apontação não-lexical precedida do sinal PELE é a estratégia mais comum para se referir a cores pelos falantes de Cena. ...
RESUMO: Este texto apresenta uma descrição preliminar da estrutura linguística da Cena, uma língua de sinais emergente do interior do Piauí. A Cena é uma das línguas minoritárias do Brasil e é uma língua compartilhada por surdos e ouvintes da localidade Várzea Queimada. O texto é útil para aqueles interessados na temática de língua de sinais emergentes e a questão da evolução e tipologia das línguas. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: língua de sinais emergente; descrição gramatical; emergência linguística. ABSTRACT: This paper presents a preliminary description of the linguistic structure of Cena, an emerging sign language in the interior of Piauí. Cena is of one of the minority languages found in Brazil and it is a language shared between the deaf and hearing community of Várzea Queimada. This article may be useful to those interested in the topic of emerging sign languages within the context of evolutionary and typological issues of language.
... Kata Kolok is thought to have emerged five generations ago, with a minimum time depth of 80 years (de Vos 2012a: 42). Following research by Marsaja (2008), de Vos documented the colour terms, sign spatiality and nonmanual features of Kata Kolok, alongside a study of the acquisition of perfective aspect marking by a child signer (de Vos 2011(de Vos , 2012a(de Vos , 2012b(de Vos , 2014. ...
