Sign Language Among North American Indians 23

Sign Language Among North American Indians 23

RELATIONS TO PHILOLOGY._

 

The aid to be derived from the study of sign language in prosecuting

researches into the science of language was pointed out by LEIBNITZ,

in his _Collectanea Etymologica_, without hitherto exciting any

thorough or scientific work in that direction, the obstacle to it

probably being that scholars competent in other respects had no

adequate data of the gesture speech of man to be used in comparison.

The latter will, it is hoped, be supplied by the work now undertaken.

 

In the first part of this paper it was suggested that signs played an

important part in giving meaning to spoken words. Philology, comparing

the languages of earth in their radicals, must therefore include the

graphic or manual presentation of thought, and compare the elements of

ideography with those of phonics. Etymology now examines the ultimate

roots, not the fanciful resemblances between oral forms, in the

different tongues; the internal, not the mere external parts of

language. A marked peculiarity of sign language consists in its

limited number of radicals and the infinite combinations into

which those radicals enter while still remaining distinctive. It is

therefore a proper field for etymologic study.

 

From these and other considerations it is supposed that an analysis

of the original conceptions of gestures, studied together with the

holophrastic roots in the speech of the gesturers, may aid in the

ascertainment of some relation between concrete ideas and words.

Meaning does not adhere to the phonic presentation of thought, while

it does to signs. The latter are doubtless more flexible and in that

sense more mutable than words, but the ideas attached to them are

persistent, and therefore there is not much greater metamorphosis

in the signs than in the cognitions. The further a language has been

developed from its primordial roots, which have been twisted into

forms no longer suggesting any reason for their original selection,

and the more the primitive significance of its words has disappeared,

the fewer points of contact can it retain with signs. The higher

languages are more precise because the consciousness of the derivation

of most of their words is lost, so that they have become counters,

good for any sense agreed upon and for no other.

 

It is, however, possible to ascertain the included gesture even in

many English words. The class represented by the word _supercilious_

will occur to all readers, but one or two examples may be given not

so obvious and more immediately connected with the gestures of our

Indians. _Imbecile_, generally applied to the weakness of old age,

is derived from the Latin _in_, in the sense of on, and _bacillum_,

a staff, which at once recalls the Cheyenne sign for _old man_,

mentioned above, page 339. So _time_ appears more nearly connected

with [Greek: teino] to stretch, when information is given of the sign

for _long time_, in the Speech of Kin Chē-ĕss, in this paper,

viz., placing the thumbs and forefingers in such a position as if a

small thread was held between the thumb and forefinger of each hand,

the hands first touching each other, and then moving slowly from each

other, as if _stretching_ a piece of gum-elastic.

 

In the languages of North America, which have not become arbitrary to

the degree exhibited by those of civilized man, the connection between

the idea and the word is only less obvious than, that still unbroken

between the idea and the sign, and they remain strongly affected

by the concepts of outline, form, place, position, and feature on

which gesture is founded, while they are similar in their fertile

combination of radicals.

 

Indian language consists of a series of words that are but slightly

differentiated parts of speech following each other in the order

suggested in the mind of the speaker without absolute laws of

arrangement, as its sentences are not completely integrated. The

sentence necessitates parts of speech, and parts of speech are

possible only when a language has reached that stage where sentences

are logically constructed. The words of an Indian tongue, being

synthetic or undifferentiated parts of speech, are in this respect

strictly analogous to the gesture elements which enter into a sign

language. The study of the latter is therefore valuable for comparison

with the words of the former. The one language throws much light upon

the other, and neither can be studied to the best advantage without a

knowledge of the other.

 

Some special resemblances between the language of signs and the

character of the oral languages found on this continent may be

mentioned. Dr. J. HAMMOND TRUMBULL remarks of the composition of their

words that they were "so constructed as to be thoroughly self-defining

and immediately intelligible to the hearer." In another connection the

remark is further enforced: "Indeed, it is a requirement of the Indian

languages that every word shall be so framed as to admit of immediate

resolution to its significant elements by the hearer. It must be

thoroughly _self-defining_, for (as Max Müller has expressed it) 'it

requires tradition, society, and literature to maintain words which

can no longer be analyzed at once.'... In the ever-shifting state of

a nomadic society no debased coin can be tolerated in language, no

obscure legend accepted on trust. The metal must be pure and the

legend distinct."

 

Indian languages, like those of higher development, sometimes

exhibit changes of form by the permutation of vowels, but often an

incorporated particle, whether suffix, affix, or infix, shows the

etymology which often, also, exhibits the same objective conception

that would be executed in gesture. There are, for instance, different

forms for standing, sitting, lying, falling, &c., and for standing,

sitting, lying on or falling from the same level or a higher or lower

level. This resembles the pictorial conception and execution of signs.

 

Major J.W. POWELL, with particular reference to the disadvantages of

the multiplied inflections in Indian languages, alike with the Greek

and Latin, when the speaker is compelled, in the choice of a word to

express his idea, to think of a great multiplicity of things, gives

the following instance:

 

"A Ponca Indian in saying that a man killed a rabbit, would have to

say: the man, he, one, animate, standing, in the nominative case,

purposely killed, by shooting an arrow, the rabbit, he, the one,

animate, sitting, in the objective case; for the form of a verb to

kill would have to be selected, and the verb changes its form by

inflection and incorporated particles to denote person, number, and

gender as animate or inanimate, and gender as standing, sitting, or

lying, and case; and the form of the verb would also express whether

the killing was done accidentally or purposely, and whether it was by

shooting or by some other process, and, if by shooting, whether by

bow and arrow, or with a gun; and the form of the verb would in like

manner have to express all of these things relating to the object;

that is, the person, number, gender, and case of the object; and

from the multiplicity of paradigmatic forms of the verb to kill, this

particular one would have to be selected." This is substantially the

mode in which an Indian sign talker would find it necessary to tell

the story, as is shown by several examples given below in narratives,

speeches, and dialogues.

 

Indian languages exhibit the same fondness for demonstration which is

necessary in sign language. The two forms of utterance are alike in

their want of power to express certain words, such as the verb "to

be," and in the criterion of organization, so far as concerns a

high degree of synthesis and imperfect differentiation, they bear

substantially the same relation to the English language.

 

It may finally be added that as not only proper names but nouns,

generally in Indian languages are connotive, predicating some

attribute of the object, they can readily be expressed by gesture

signs, and therefore among them, if anywhere, it is to be expected

that relations may be established between the words and the signs.

 

 

ETYMOLOGY OF WORDS FROM GESTURES.

 

There can be no attempt in the present limits to trace the etymology

of any large number of words in the several Indian languages to a

gestural origin, nor, if the space allowed, would it be satisfactory.

The signs have scarcely yet been collected, verified, and collated

in sufficient numbers for such comparison, even with the few of

the Indian languages the radicals of which have been scientifically

studied. The signs will, in a future work, be frequently presented in

connection with the corresponding words of the gesturers, as is done

now in a few instances in another part of this paper. For the present

the subject is only indicated by the following examples, introduced to

suggest the character of the study in which the students of American

linguistics are urgently requested to assist:

 

The Dakota word _Shaⁿte-suta_--from _shaⁿte_, heart, and _suta_,

strong--_brave_, not cowardly, literally strong-hearted, is made by

several tribes of that stock, and particularly by the Brulé Sioux, in

gestures by collecting the tips of the fingers and thumb of the right

hand to a point, and then placing the radial side of the hand over

the heart, finger tips pointing downward--_heart_; then place the

left fist, palm inward, horizontally before the lower portion of the

breast, the right fist back of the left, then raise the right and

throw it forcibly over and downward in front of the left--_brave_,

_strong_. See Fig. 242, page 415.

 

The Arikaras make the sign for _brave_ by striking the clinched fist

forcibly toward the ground in front of and near the breast.

 

Brave, or "strong-hearted," is made by the Absaroka, Shoshoni, and

Banak Indians by merely placing the clinched fist to the breast, the

latter having allusion to the heart, the clinching of the hand to

strength, vigor, or force.

 

An Ojibwa sign for _death, to die_, is as follows:

 

Place the palm of the hand at a short distance from the side of

the head, then withdraw it gently in an oblique downward direction,

inclining the head and upper part of the body in the same direction.

 

The same authority, The Very Rev. E. Jacker, who contributes it,

notes that there is an apparent connection between this conception and

execution and the etymology of the corresponding terms in Ojibwa. "He

dies," is _nibo_; "he sleeps," is _niba_. The common idea expressed

by the gesture is a sinking to rest. The original significance of

the root _nib_ seems to be "leaning;" _anibeia_, "it is leaning";

_anibekweni_, "he inclines the head sidewards." The word _niba_ or

_nibe_ (only in compounds) conveys the idea of "night," perhaps as the

falling over, the going to rest, or the death of the day.

 

_Ogima_, the Ojibwa term for _chief_, is derived from a root which

signifies "above" (_Ogidjaii_, upon; _ogidjina_, above; _ogidaki_,

on a hill or mountain, etc.). _Ogitchida_, a brave, a hero (Otawa,

_ogida_), is probably from the same root.

 

_Sagima_, the Ojibwa form of sachem, is from the root _sag_, which

implies a coming forth, or stretching out. These roots are to be

considered in connection with several gestures described under the

head of _Chief_, in EXTRACTS FROM DICTIONARY, _infra_.

 

_Onijishin_, it is _good_ (_Ojibwa_), originally signifies "it

lies level." This may be compared with the sign for _good_, in

the Tendoy-Huerito Dialogue, Fig. 309, page 487, and also that for

_happy, contentment_, in the Speech of Kin Chē-ĕss, page 523.

 

In Klamath the radix _lam_ designates a whirling motion, and appears

in the word _láma_, "to be crazy, mad," readily correlated with the

common gesture for _madman_ and _fool_, in which the hand is rotated

above and near the head.

 

_Evening_, in Klamath, is _litkhí_, from _luta_, to hang down, meaning

the time when the sun hangs down, the gesture for which, described

elsewhere in this paper (see Nátci's Narrative, page 503), is

executive of the same conception, which is allied to the etymology

usually given for _eve, even_, "the decline of the day." These

Klamath etymologies have been kindly contributed by Mr. A.S. Gatschet.

 

The Very Rev. E. Jacker also communicates a suggestive _excursus

exegeticus_ upon the probable gestural origin of the Ojibwa word

_tibishko_, "opposite in space; just so; likewise:"

 

"The adverb _tibishko_ (or _dibishko_) is an offshoot of the root

_tib_ (or _dib_), which in most cases conveys the idea of measuring

or weighing, as appears from the following samples: _dibaige_, he

measures; _dibowe_, he settles matters by his speech or word, e.g.,

as a juryman; _dibaamage_, he pays out; _dibakonige_, he judges;

_dibabishkodjige_, he weighs; _dibamenimo_, he restricts himself, e.g., to a certain quantity of food; _dibissitchige_, he fulfills a promise; _dibijigan_, a pattern for cutting clothes.