Exploration of two sign languages independently employed by two isolated deaf signers in a single northern India village found that both languages included such negative structure elements as context-dependence, multichannels, and nondiscrete, ambiguous signs. One signer, strongly embedded in close relationships that formed a tiny speech…

Comparison of Indian rural and urban sign languages of the deaf found that the urban form transmitted information primarily by means of appeal to a shared linguistic code, and the rural form mainly by appeal to communal nonlinguistic knowledge. Both languages employed effective and appropriate means given their environments. (23 references)…