The Gestural Origin of Language

In The Gestural Origin of Language, Sherman Wilcox and David Armstrong use evidence from and about sign languages to explore the origins of language as we know it today. According to their model, it is sign, not spoken languages, that is the original mode of human communication.

The authors demonstrate that modern language is derived from practical actions and gestures that were increasingly recognized as having the potential to represent, and hence to communicate. In other words, the fundamental ability that allows us to use language is our ability to use pictures or icons, rather than linguistic symbols. Evidence from the human fossil record supports the authors' claim by showing that we were anatomically able to produce gestures and signs before we were able to speak fluently. Although speech evolved later as a secondary linguistic communication device that eventually replaced sign language as the primary mode of communication, speech has never entirely replaced signs and gestures.

As the first comprehensive attempt to trace the origin of grammar to gesture, this volume will be an invaluable resource for students and professionals in psychology, linguistics, and philosophy.

David F. Armstrong received bachelor's and PhD degrees in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and has worked at Gallaudet University since 1980. An Associate Professor, he currently serves as the University's budget director. Since 1999, he has edited the journal Sign Language Studies, and he has published extensively in areas related to deafness and the origin and evolution of language.

Sherman E. Wilcox is Professor and Chair of the Department of Linguistics at the University of New Mexico. The author of several books including Gesture and the Nature of Language with co-authors David F. Armstrong and William C. Stokoe, Wilcox has lectured and taught extensively on signed languages, gesture, and the evolution of language, in Brazil, France, Italy, and Spain. His scholarly research focuses on the nature of the gesture-language interface in signed languages.