Signs of the Times and Invented Language--
Nicaragua, according to some reports, is the second poorest country in Central America behind Haiti. The education system is far below minimum standards set forth by various institutions monitoring the development of regional learning. Many students drop out of school because it's "boring" and they can't make any money, opting for menial low paying jobs in order to support their families and "buy new clothes."
If the overall educational system in Nicaragua, where kids drop out before the eighth grade, is in such a shambles, why is there such great emphasis on illustrating the particular merit of Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL)? Affecting only an extremely small segment of the population, hearing impaired kids, where hundreds of thousands more have little or no interest in education, what significance does NSL play? Very little.
A close friend of mine, Donaldo Gomez, built a hotel on the Pacific Coast in a small beach village an hour's drive from the capital of Managua. He paid his workers eight dollars an hour, when they complained, he replied,
"What are you complaining about, I'm paying you eight dollars a day."
Such is the nature of education and the economy in Nicaragua with sign language having little or no bearing on the future of the communist dictatorship, just a passing interest to be used as a proletarian classroom YouTube example for linguistic anthropology studies and a long answer question on a mid term exam.
***
While on the subject of invented language, the following proves to be a far more interesting case, Poto and Cabengo:
(Decoded from Detroit Free Press, (22 May 1981) unedited--
Twins' unique language talks about their isolation
By DIANE HAITHMAN ;roe Press Stott Writer Poto and Cabengo's real names are Virginia and Grace Kennedy. They were six years old at the time film director Jean-Pierre Gorin captured a brief por-tion of their lives on film. This Friday's Detroit Film Theatre presentation is Gordin's peculiar and lo-vely documentary about how Ginny and Grade, believed to be slightly retarded since birth. and their lower middle-in-come San Diego family become short-lived celebrities when the girls' teachers discover that they have invented a secret language all their own. Our first view of Grace and Ginny, the mischievous twins, is as two children playing with clay, normal except for the fact that they are babbling rapidly in a logical-sounding gibberish. We are told the girls have spoken nothing but this peculiar tongue for years. Yet they seem quite happy.
THE SPEECH EXPERTS approach the phenomenon cautiously — one states that the girls, a product of one German and one American parent who each speak a different ungrammatical brand of Eng-lish, could simply be suffering from this defective verbal environment. Or the girls could simply be retarded, as their odd, hyperactive manner suggests. Once the newspapers get hold of the story, however, the girls become freaks, chattering, as one newspaper puts it, in Martian. The headlines, which slowly grow smaller and smaller as the press loses interest In the story, are inter-spersed throughout the film.
POTO AND CABENGO Detroit Film Theatre U.SA, 1919 A documentary film directed and narrated by lan•Pierre Gain. Camera work by Les Blank, SOund by Maureen Gosling. editing, tilt and animation by Greg Durbin. Running tiny I hour 7 min 7 and 110 o m Detroit Institute of Arts Auditorium. 5200 Woodward PARENTS GUIDE: no ouottohable torrent
Thus "Poto and Cabengo" is not really a story about media hype. As soon as it is discovered that the girls have actually distorted English and German words, rather than inventing their own lan-guage, the story Is dropped. A film com-pany which planned to make a movie on the girls cancels out. GORIN'S APPROACH says more about the desperation of this isolated, bigoted family where each member speaks a language outside the American mainstream of speech and whose only hope for financial security is to cash in on the problems of these two children. Gorin does not make the same judg-mental statements about the girls de-prived background as do the speech therapists — he simply gapes at it. The camera lingers on the fake wood panel-ing, the huge old television set that domi-nates the living room, the used Cadillac in their small garage. Gorin feels especially for the girls' alienation, since he, too, is separated from the typical American by his French accent. Gorin, very much a part of the film as Its narrator, sees the girls as 1980s Katzenjammer Kids, possessing both the confusion and wisdom that comes of approaching American language and cul-ture from the outside.
A follow-up from Wikipedia on the twins' status:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poto_and_Cabengo
A follow-up in 2007 revealed that Virginia works on an assembly line in a supervised job training center, while Grace mops floors at a fast-food restaurant.[3]