Emerging sign languages of the Americas / edited by Olivier Le Guen, Josefina Safar and Marie Coppola.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

How Emerging Sign Languages in the Americas contributes to the study of linguistics and (emerging) sign languages / Olivier Le Guen, Marie Coppola and Josefina Safar -- Signs, interaction, coordination, and gaze : interactive foundations of "Z" - and emerging (sign) language from Chiapas, Mexico / John Haviland -- Representational strategies in shared homesign systems from Nebaj, Guatemala / Laura Horton -- Strategies of noun-verb distinction in Yucatec Maya sign languages / Josefina Safar and Rodrigo Petatillo Chan -- A typological perspective on the meaninful handshapes in the emerging sign languages on Marajo Island (Brazil) / Emmanuella Martinod, Brigitte Garcia and Ivani Fusellier -- Emerging sign languages in the Caribbean / Ben Braithwaite -- Yucatec Maya multimodal interaction as the basis for Yucatec Maya sign language / Olivier Le Guen, Rebeca Petatillo and Rita (Rossy) Kinil Canche -- Gestures, homesign, sign language : cultural and social factors driving lexical conventionalization / Marie Coppola -- Zinacantec family homesign (or "Z") / John B. Haviland -- A sociolinguistic sketch of deaf individuals and families from Nebaj, Guatemala / Laura Horton -- Yucatec Maya sign langugage(s) : a sociolinguistic overview / Josefina Safar and Olivier Le Guen -- Sign languages on Marajo Island (Brazil) / Emmanuella Martinod, Brigitte Garcia and Ivani Fusellier -- Sociolinguistic sketch of Providence Island sign language / Ben Braithwaite -- Bay Islands sign language : a sociolinguistic sketch / Kristian Ali and Ben Braithwaite -- Sociolinguistic sketch : Nicaraguan sign language and homesign systems in Nicaragua / Marie Coppola.

This volume is the first to bring together researchers studying a range of different types of emerging sign languages in the Americas, and their relationship to the gestures produced in the surrounding communities of hearing individuals.00.