Native to Solomon Islands Language family none (home sign) | Extinct ca. 2000 Glottolog renn1236 | |
Rennellese Sign Language is an extinct form of home sign documented from Rennell Island in 1974. It was developed about 1915 by a deaf person named Kagobai and used by his hearing family and friends, but apparently died with him; he was the only deaf person on the island, and there never was an established, self-replicating community of signers. Accordingly, in January 2017 its ISO 639-3 code [rsi] was retired.
Classification
Wittmann (1991) proposed that RSL was a language isolate (a 'prototype' sign language), though one developed through stimulus diffusion from an existing sign language. However, his classification presupposes that it was a full language, which is almost certainly not the case, and Kuschel (the only source of information about this communication system) cites no evidence to suggest that there was any contact with any sign language.