Meir et al. define a village sign language as one which "arise[s] in an existing, relatively insular community into which a number of deaf children are born.
[2] In many cases, the sign language is known throughout the community by a large portion of the hearing population.
In such cases, most of the hearing signers may be native speakers of the language, if they are members of one of these families, or acquired it at a young age.
In most recorded cases of village sign, it appears that recessive deafness is at work.
With plenty of direct contact between deaf signers, the languages tend to be well developed.
With fewer hearing people with deaf relatives, there are also generally fewer hearing people who sign, and less intermarriage; families tend to have their own vocabulary (and perhaps language), as on Amami Oshima in Japan.
There appear to be grammatical differences between village and deaf-community languages, which may parallel the emergence and development of grammar during creolization.
Village sign languages have historically appeared and disappeared as communities have shifted, and many are unknown or undescribed.