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Creation 18(3):49, June 1996

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Deaf babies show we are 'created to speak'

Sign languages used by deaf people have the structural elements, syntax and morphology of true language. Studies of 'signing' (producing sign language) strongly support the notion that all humans are, from birth, 'wired up' for language communication in any form available.

Deaf babies whose parents 'sign' to them use their hands to 'babble' like other babies. Hearing-children with only one deaf parent (who are thus exposed to speech and sign) babble with sounds and signs, then learn both languages. Hearing-infants with both deaf parents, exposed to sign only, learn sign language as quickly as any deaf child, then become fluently bilingual when exposed to speech.

A fascinating example of innate language ability comes from Nicaragua, in Central America, where for the first time about 500 deaf children were placed together in communities.

According to Discover magazine (August, 1994), these deaf children began to 'talk' to each other, and observers over the past 10 years have watched a fully fledged sign language emerge from nowhere, with the elements of grammar, a full vocabulary, and everything you would expect in a language.

After years of experiments training chimps, it is doubtful whether true grammatical ability has ever been demonstrated in these animals — much to the frustration of evolutionists. Yet it has been shown that human babies instinctively grasp the structure of any language, confirming that humans, but not animals, were created to speak.

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