Stephen Henderson

“signed language is not merely proselike and narrative in structure, but essentially “cinematic” too: In a signed language … narrative is no longer linear and prosaic. Instead, the essence of sign language is to cut from a normal view to a close-up to a distant shot to a close-up again, and so on, even including flashback and flash-forward scenes, exactly as a movie editor works.… Not only is signing itself arranged more like edited film than like written narration, but also each signer is placed very much as a camera: the field of vision and angle of view are directed but variable. Not only the signer signing but also the signer watching is aware at all times of the signer’s visual orientation to what is being signed about.”
― Oliver Sacks, Seeing Voices

“This innate structure, this latent structure, is not fully developed at birth, nor is it too obvious at the age of eighteen months. But then, suddenly, and in the most dramatic way, the developing child becomes open to language, becomes able to construct a grammar from the utterances of his parents. He shows a spectacular ability, a genius for language, between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-six months”
― Oliver Sacks, Seeing Voices

“Speech has only one dimension—its extension in time; writing has two dimensions; models have three; but only signed languages have at their disposal four dimensions—the three spatial dimensions accessible to a signer’s body, as well as the dimension of time. And Sign fully exploits the syntactic possibilities in its four-dimensional channel of expression.”
― Oliver Sacks, Seeing Voices

“The controls of a skilled activity generally function below the level of consciousness on which that activity takes place. The code is a hidden persuader. This applies not only to our visceral activities and muscular skills, but also to the skill of perceiving the world around us in a coherent and meaningful manner.”
― Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation