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This article analyzes the construction of sign names in an emerging sign language from Mexico, the Yucatec Maya Sign Language (YMSL). Data comes from elicited interviews as well as natural interactions collected by the authors and signers from two different villages, Chicán and Nohkop. Despite YMSL being an isolate language, sign name construction displays tendencies common in other sign languages, such as being based on descriptions of people's appearance and/or behavior. YMSL sign names also exhibit less common features, such as the extensive use of generic names, names by (kinship) association, and nonmanual sign names. Crucially, name construction in YMSL seems to follow the cultural naming rules of the surrounding Yucatec Maya community. A total of ninety-seven sign names were collected in the two communities: forty-two signs in Nohkop and fifty-five in Chicán. This article explores how the cultural setting can shape the development of sign names in an emerging sign language.

In this article, we examine various strategies used to express cardinal numbers in Yucatec Maya Sign Languages (YMSLs) from three historically unrelated communities in Yucatán, Mexico: Chicán, Nohkop, and Cepeda Peraza. Our findings describe some numeral strategies, which remained unattested in previous accounts, and demonstrate that YMSL numerals exhibit patterns of systematic inter- and intracommunity variation as a result of linguistic and sociolinguistic factors. These patterns are still in process of becoming solidified and a high level of individual variation persists. The analysis of numerals in YMSLs provides us with an excellent opportunity to observe the emergence of sociolinguistic variation in young village sign languages. Our study is based on data from elicitation, natural conversations, and interviews, and takes into account several aspects: the influence of Yucatec Maya gestures on the formation of YMSL numeral signs, the regional and intracommunity distribution of numeral signs and numeral strategies, the impact of literacy on YMSL number expression, the existence of familylects and community members' language attitudes. Finally, we discuss some methodological challenges to studying variation in rural sign languages.