Photograph by Rabia Ergin

Photograph by Rabia Ergin

   Central Taurus Sign Language (CTSL)

              Central Taurus Sign Language (CTSL) is a village sign language that naturally emerged within the last half century in a mountainous remote area in southern central Turkey. CTSL has developed on its own in the absence of an accessible language model as the primary (and only) means of communication for the deaf individuals.
             I became aware of the importance of this language during a Linguistics seminar at Tufts University in November 2012. While discussing a paper on home sign systems invented by deaf kids being born into hearing families, I happened to mention that I had deaf relatives in an isolated area in Southern Turkey and they had their own sign language distinct from any other language used in the region. Needless to say, it was an exciting moment for everybody in the room. Since then, I have been documenting the linguistic properties of CTSL in collaboration with sign language experts from various institutions both in and outside the US.
            One of the two main reasons for such a language to develop on its own is the high population of deaf individuals in these communities as an outcome of a hereditary deafness. The deafness in the CTSL community is preserved up until today probably because of marriage patterns involving close/distant relatives and/or deaf individuals getting married to each other. The other reason for CTSL to emerge naturally without the influence of any other language is the financial, geographical and cultural conditions in the region. It is a labor-intensive community on top of one of the most mountainous regions of Turkey and the villagers rely on agriculture and animal husbandry in order to meet their own basic needs. Because of this self-sufficient way of life, until the last couple of decades, sending children away for education was not only unaffordable but also irrelevant to the lives of the villagers. 
             CTSL is named after the Central Taurus mountain range in the region by myself and my doctoral advisor Prof. Ray Jackendoff. Today it spreads over three tiny villages: Village 1 with a population of 326 involving 15 deaf individuals, Village 2 with a population of 1,955 involving 14 deaf individuals and Village 3 with a population of 182 involving 1 deaf individual (deaf population in each village: 4.6%[1], .7%, .5%, respectively)[2]. All three of these villages are located within a 15-mile radius and most of the deaf individuals in these villages are connected to each other from birth or through marriage.
            A critical fact about CTSL is that it is a very young brand-new language and the very first creators of this system are alive today. It emerged with little or no influence of Turkish Sign Language (TID) and is distinct from it, as evaluated by a deaf native TID signer. Its linguistic organization is not fully conventionalized yet, but still developing. Therefore, it provides us with a specific vantage point about how language develops at a specific point in time. 
[1] Considering .1% deaf population in the US (Emmorey, 2002) and .4% in Turkey (Demir & Aysoy, 2004), this is a very high proportion of deafness within a tiny community.
[2] These are official numbers based on 2011 population count (Retrieved on 10/2/2016 from http://www.yerelnet.org.tr/koyler/koy.php?koyid=248633).

Photograph by Rabia Ergin

Media Coverage
A Window on How Language Develops ​​ | Tufts Now
Something out of Nothing: A brand-new language | TEDxTufts
The Origin of Language: From Nothing to Something | Het Talige Brein
In the name of research: Why linguists are keeping some sign languages hidden | Independent
Studying sign languages won't kill it --so what are linguists scared of? | Mosaic Science
The Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on the Evolution of Language featuring CTSL signers on its cover
Kendiliğinden Oluşan İşaret Dilini Literatüre Kazandırdı | Anadolu Ajansı
Keşfedilmemiş İşaret Dillerini Araştırıyor | SÖZCÜ
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Publications on CTSL

• Ergin, R., Senghas, A., Jackendoff, R., & Gleitman, L. (2020). Structural cues for symmetry, asymmetry, and non-symmetry in Central Taurus Sign Language. In D. Lillo-Martin, W. Sandler, M. Coppola, R. Stamp (Eds.). In Special Issue in Memory of Irit Meir. Sign Language & Linguistics 23(1/2), pp. 170-207.
• Ergin, R., Raviv, L., Senghas, A., Padden, C., & Sandler, W. (2020). Community structure affects convergence on uniform word orders: Evidence from emerging sign languages. In proceedings of 13th International Conference on the Evolution of Language.
• Ergin, R., Meir, I., Ilkbaşaran, D., Padden, C., & Jackendoff, R. (2018). The Development of Argument Structure in Central Taurus Sign Language. In C. de Vos & V. Nyst (Eds.). Special Edition on Sign Language Studies, 18(4), pp. 612-639.
• Ergin, R. (2017). Central Taurus Sign Language: A Unique Vantage Point into Language Emergence. (Doctoral  dissertation, Tufts University, Medford, MA). Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1912381112?pq-origsite=gscholar
• Ergin, R., & Brentari, D. (2017). Hand shape preferences for nouns and verbs in Central Taurus Sign Language. In M. LaMendola & J. Scott (Eds.), Proceedings of the 41st annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, (pp. 222-235). Medford, MA: Cascadilla Press
• Hwang, S., Tomita, N., Morgan, H., Ergin, R., Ilkbasaran, D., Seegers, S., Lepic, R. & Padden, C. (2016). Typological unification of sign language lexicons through patterned iconicity. Language and Cognition, pp.1-30. doi:10.1017/langcog.2016.28. 

Current Projects involving CTSL data
1) Language Emergence and Evolution in the Absence of a Conventionalized Linguistic Model with Simon Kirby (Edinburgh U), Ann Senghas (Barnard), Matt Hall (Temple) and Limor Raviv (MPI)
2) Emergence of Verb Classes with Ann Senghas (Barnard), Ray Jackendoff (Tufts/MIT) and Lila Gleitman (UPenn)
3) Emergence of Morphology and Phonology with Diane Brentari (UChicago)
4)  Adjective ordering in the initial stages of a language” with Leyla Kürşat (Stanford) and Judith Degen (Stanford) 

Prof. Carol Padden (UCSD) with one of the youngest CTSL signers, August 2013. 

Me, while collecting data in August 2014

My research assistants Leyla Kursat (Tufts undergrad) and Mustafa Benli (local), after a long data collection day, August 2015

My research assistant Leyla Kursat, while collecting data in July 2016

Photograph by Rabia Ergin

CTSL signers discussing how to fix the roof of the house.

Photograph by Deniz Ilkbasaran

From left to right: I, Dr. Deniz Ilkbasaran and Prof. Carol Padden, while discussing CTSL data during 2013 field trip.