Sign Language Among North American Indians 3

Sign Language Among North American Indians 3

DIVISIONS OF GESTURE SPEECH.

 

These are corporeal motion and facial __EXPRESSION__. An attempt has been

made by some writers to discuss these general divisions separately,

and its success would be practically convenient if it were always

understood that their connection is so intimate that they can never

be altogether severed. A play of feature, whether instinctive or

voluntary, accentuates and qualifies all motions intended to serve

as signs, and strong instinctive facial __EXPRESSION__ is generally

accompanied by action of the body or some of its members. But, so

far as a distinction can be made, __EXPRESSION__s of the features are the

result of emotional, and corporeal gestures, of intellectual action.

The former in general and the small number of the latter that

are distinctively emotional are nearly identical among men from

physiological causes which do not affect with the same similarity

the processes of thought. The large number of corporeal gestures

expressing intellectual operations require and admit of more variety

and conventionality. Thus the features and the body among all mankind

act almost uniformly in exhibiting fear, grief, surprise, and shame,

but all objective conceptions are varied and variously portrayed. Even

such simple indications as those for "no" and "yes" appear in several

differing motions. While, therefore, the terms sign language and

gesture speech necessarily include and suppose facial __EXPRESSION__ when

emotions are in question, they refer more particularly to corporeal

motions and attitudes. For this reason much of the valuable

contribution of DARWIN in his ___EXPRESSION__ of the Emotions in Man and

Animals_ is not directly applicable to sign language. His analysis

of emotional gestures into those explained on the principles of

serviceable associated habits, of antithesis, and of the constitution

of the nervous system, should, nevertheless, always be remembered.

Even if it does not strictly embrace the class of gestures which

form the subject of this paper, and which often have an immediate

pantomimic origin, the earliest gestures were doubtless instinctive

and generally emotional, preceding pictorial, metaphoric, and, still

subsequent, conventional gestures even, as, according to DARWIN's

cogent reasoning, they preceded articulate speech.

 

While the distinction above made between the realm of facial play and

that of motions of the body, especially those of the arms and hands,

is sufficiently correct for use in discussion, it must be admitted

that the features do express intellect as well as emotion. The

well-known saying of Charles Lamb that "jokes came in with the

candles" is in point, but the most remarkable example of conveying

detailed information without the use of sounds, hands, or arms,

is given by the late President T.H. Gallaudet, the distinguished

instructor of deaf-mutes, which, to be intelligible, requires to be

quoted at length:

 

"One day, our distinguished and lamented historical painter, Col. John

Trumbull, was in my school-room during the hours of instruction, and,

on my alluding to the tact which the pupil referred to had of reading

my face, he expressed a wish to see it tried. I requested him to

select any event in Greek, Roman, English, or American history of a

scenic character, which would make a striking picture on canvas, and

said I would endeavor to communicate it to the lad. 'Tell him,' said

he, 'that Brutus (Lucius Junius) condemned his two sons to death for

resisting his authority and violating his orders.'

 

"I folded my arms in front of me, and kept them in that position,

to preclude the possibility of making any signs or gestures, or of

spelling any words on my fingers, and proceeded, as best I could, by

the __EXPRESSION__ of my countenance, and a few motions of my head and

attitudes of the body, to convey the picture in my own mind to the

mind of my pupil.

 

"It ought to be stated that he was already acquainted with the fact,

being familiar with the leading events in Roman history. But when I

began, he knew not from what portion of history, sacred or profane,

ancient or modern, the fact was selected. From this wide range,

my delineation on the one hand and his ingenuity on the other had

to bring it within the division of Roman history, and, still more

minutely, to the particular individual and transaction designated by

Colonel Trumbull. In carrying on the process, I made no use whatever

of any arbitrary, conventional look, motion, or attitude, before

settled between us, by which to let him understand what I wished to

communicate, with the exception of a single one, if, indeed, it ought

to be considered such.

 

"The usual sign, at that time, among the teachers and pupils, for

a Roman, was portraying an aquiline nose by placing the forefinger,

crooked, in front of the nose. As I was prevented from using my finger

in this way, and having considerable command over the muscles of my

face, I endeavored to give my nose as much of the aquiline form as

possible, and succeeded well enough for my purpose....

 

"The outlines of the process were the following:

 

"A stretching and stretching gaze eastward, with an undulating motion

of the head, as if looking across and beyond the Atlantic Ocean,

to denote that the event happened, not on the western, but eastern

continent. This was making a little progress, as it took the subject

out of the range of American history.

 

"A turning of the eyes upward and backward, with frequently-repeated

motions of the head backward, as if looking a great way back in past

time, to denote that the event was one of ancient date.

 

"The aquiline shape of the nose, already referred to, indicating that

a Roman was the person concerned. It was, of course, an old Roman.

 

"Portraying, as well as I could, by my countenance, attitude, and

manner an individual high in authority, and commanding others, as if

he expected to be obeyed.

 

"Looking and acting as if I were giving out a specific order to many

persons, and threatening punishment on those who should resist my

authority, even the punishment of death.

 

"Here was a pause in the progress of events, which I denoted by

sleeping as it were during the night and awakening in the morning, and

doing this several times, to signify that several days had elapsed.

 

"Looking with deep interest and surprise, as if at a single person

brought and standing before me, with an __EXPRESSION__ of countenance

indicating that he had violated the order which I had given, and that

I knew it. Then looking in the same way at another person near him as

also guilty. Two offending persons were thus denoted.

 

"Exhibiting serious deliberation, then hesitation, accompanied with

strong conflicting emotions, producing perturbation, as if I knew not

how to feel or what to do.

 

"Looking first at one of the persons before me, and then at the other,

and then at both together, _as a father would look_, indicating his

distressful parental feelings under such afflicting circumstances.

 

"Composing my feelings, showing that a change was coming over me, and

exhibiting towards the imaginary persons before me the decided look of

the inflexible commander, who was determined and ready to order them

away to execution. Looking and acting as if the tender and forgiving

feelings of _the father_ had again got the ascendency, and as if I was

about to relent and pardon them.

 

"These alternating states of mind I portrayed several times, to make

my representations the more graphic and impressive.

 

"At length the father yields, and the stern principle of justice, as

expressed in my countenance and manners, prevails. My look and action

denote the passing of the sentence of death on the offenders, and the

ordering them away to execution.

 

* * * * *

 

"He quickly turned round to his slate and wrote a correct and complete

account of this story of Brutus and his two sons."

 

* * * * *

 

While it appears that the __EXPRESSION__s of the features are not confined

to the emotions or to distinguishing synonyms, it must be remembered

that the meaning of the same motion of hands, arms, and fingers is

often modified, individualized, or accentuated by associated facial

changes and postures of the body not essential to the sign, which

emotional changes and postures are at once the most difficult to

describe and the most interesting when intelligently reported, not

only because they infuse life into the skeleton sign, but because they

may belong to the class of innate __EXPRESSION__s.

 

 

 

 

THE ORIGIN OF SIGN LANGUAGE.

 

In observing the maxim that nothing can be thoroughly understood

unless its beginning is known, it becomes necessary to examine into

the origin of sign language through its connection with that of oral

speech. In this examination it is essential to be free from the vague

popular impression that some oral language, of the general character

of that now used among mankind, is "natural" to mankind. It will be

admitted on reflection that all oral languages were at some past time

far less serviceable to those using them than they are now, and as

each particular language has been thoroughly studied it has become

evident that it grew out of some other and less advanced form. In

the investigation of these old forms it has been so difficult to

ascertain how any of them first became a useful instrument of

inter-communication that many conflicting theories on this subject

have been advocated.

 

Oral language consists of variations and mutations of vocal sounds

produced as signs of thought and emotion. But it is not enough that

those signs should be available as the vehicle of the producer's own

thoughts. They must be also efficient for the communication of such

thoughts to others. It has been, until of late years, generally held

that thought was not possible without oral language, and that, as man

was supposed to have possessed from the first the power of thought, he

also from the first possessed and used oral language substantially

as at present. That the latter, as a special faculty, formed the

main distinction between man and the brutes has been and still is

the prevailing doctrine. In a lecture delivered before the British

Association in 1878 it was declared that "animal intelligence is

unable to elaborate that class of abstract ideas, the formation of

which depends upon the faculty of speech." If instead of "speech" the

word "utterance" had been used, as including all possible modes of

intelligent communication, the statement might pass without criticism.

But it may be doubted if there is any more necessary connection

between abstract ideas and sounds, the mere signs of thought, that

strike the ear, than there is between the same ideas and signs

addressed only to the eye.

 

The point most debated for centuries has been, not whether there

was any primitive oral language, but what that language was. Some

literalists have indeed argued from the Mosaic narrative that because

the Creator, by one supernatural act, with the express purpose to

form separate peoples, had divided all tongues into their present

varieties, and could, by another similar exercise of power, obliterate

all but one which should be universal, the fact that he had not

exercised that power showed it not to be his will that any man to

whom a particular speech had been given should hold intercourse with

another miraculously set apart from him by a different speech. By this

reasoning, if the study of a foreign tongue was not impious, it was

at least clear that the primitive language had been taken away as a

disciplinary punishment, as the Paradisiac Eden had been earlier lost,

and that, therefore, the search for it was as fruitless as to attempt

the passage of the flaming sword. More liberal Christians have been

disposed to regard the Babel story as allegorical, if not mythical,

and have considered it to represent the disintegration of tongues

out of one which was primitive. In accordance with the advance of

linguistic science they have successively shifted back the postulated

primitive tongue from Hebrew to Sanscrit, then to Aryan, and now seek

to evoke from the vasty deeps of antiquity the ghosts of other rival

claimants for precedence in dissolution. As, however, the languages of

man are now recognized as extremely numerous, and as the very sounds

of which these several languages are composed are so different that

the speakers of some are unable to distinguish with the ear certain

sounds in others, still less able to reproduce them, the search for

one common parent language is more difficult than was supposed by mediæval ignorance.