Sign Language Among North American Indians 26

Sign Language Among North American Indians 26

Sign language cannot show by inflection the reciprocal dependence

of words and sentences. Degrees of motion corresponding with vocal

intonation are only used rhetorically or for degrees of comparison.

The relations of ideas and objects are therefore expressed by

placement, and their connection is established when necessary by the

abstraction of ideas. The sign talker is an artist, grouping persons

and things so as to show the relations between them, and the effect

is that which is seen in a picture. But though the artist has the

advantage in presenting in a permanent connected scene the result of

several transient signs, he can only present it as it appears at

a single moment. The sign talker has the succession of time at his

disposal, and his scenes move and act, are localized and animated, and

their arrangement is therefore more varied and significant.

 

It is not satisfactory to give the order of equivalent words

as representative of the order of signs, because the pictorial

arrangement is wholly lost; but adopting this expedient as a

mere illustration of the sequence in the presentation of signs by

deaf-mutes, the following is quoted from an essay by Rev. J.R. Keep,

in _American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb_, vol. xvi, p. 223, as the

order in which the parable of the Prodigal Son is translated into

signs:

 

"Once, man one, sons two. Son younger say, Father property your

divide: part my, me give. Father so.--Son each, part his give. Days

few after, son younger money all take, country far go, money

spend, wine drink, food nice eat. Money by and by gone all. Country

everywhere food little: son hungry very. Go seek man any, me hire.

Gentleman meet. Gentleman son send field swine feed. Son swine husks

eat, see--self husks eat want--cannot--husks him give nobody. Son

thinks, say, father my, servants many, bread enough, part give away

can--I none--starve, die. I decide: Father I go to, say I bad, God

disobey, you disobey--name my hereafter _son_, no--I unworthy. You

me work give servant like. So son begin go. Father far look: son see,

pity, run, meet, embrace. Son father say, I bad, you disobey, God

disobey--name my hereafter _son_, no--I unworthy. But father servants

call, command robe best bring, son put on, ring finger put on, shoes

feet put on, calf fat bring, kill. We all eat, merry. Why? Son this my

formerly dead, now alive: formerly lost, now found: rejoice."

 

It may be remarked, not only from this example, but from general

study, that the verb "to be" as a copula or predicant does not have

any place in sign language. It is shown, however, among deaf-mutes as

an assertion of presence or existence by a sign of stretching the arms

and hands forward and then adding the sign of affirmation. _Time_ as

referred to in the conjunctions _when_ and _then_ is not gestured.

Instead of the form, "When I have had a sleep I will go to the river,"

or "After sleeping I will go to the river," both deaf-mutes and

Indians would express the intention by "Sleep done, I river go."

Though time present, past, and future is readily expressed in signs

(see page 366), it is done once for all in the connection to which

it belongs, and once established is not repeated by any subsequent

intimation, as is commonly the case in oral speech. Inversion, by

which the object is placed before the action, is a striking feature

of the language of deaf-mutes, and it appears to follow the natural

method by which objects and actions enter into the mental conception.

In striking a rock the natural conception is not first of the abstract

idea of striking or of sending a stroke into vacancy, seeing nothing

and having no intention of striking anything in particular, when

suddenly a rock rises up to the mental vision and receives the blow;

the order is that the man sees the rock, has the intention to strike

it, and does so; therefore he gestures, "I rock strike." For further

illustration of this subject, a deaf-mute boy, giving in signs

the compound action of a man shooting a bird from a tree, first

represented the tree, then the bird as alighting upon it, then a

hunter coming toward and looking at it, taking aim with a gun, then

the report of the latter and the falling and the dying gasps of the

bird. These are undoubtedly the successive steps that an artist would

have taken in drawing the picture, or rather successive pictures, to

illustrate the story. It is, however, urged that this pictorial order

natural to deaf-mutes is not natural to the congenitally blind who are

not deaf-mute, among whom it is found to be rhythmical. It is asserted

that blind persons not carefully educated usually converse in a

metrical cadence, the action usually coming first in the structure of

the sentence. The deduction is that all the senses when intact enter

into the mode of intellectual conception in proportion to their

relative sensitiveness and intensity, and hence no one mode of

ideation can be insisted on as normal to the exclusion of others.

 

Whether or not the above statement concerning the blind is true, the

conceptions and presentations of deaf-mutes and of Indians using sign

language because they cannot communicate by speech, are confined to

optic and, therefore, to pictorial arrangement.

 

The abbé Sicard, dissatisfied with the want of tenses and

conjunctions, indeed of most of the modern parts of speech, in the

natural signs, and with their inverted order, attempted to construct a

new language of signs, in which the words should be given in the

order of the French or other spoken language adopted, which of course

required him to supply a sign for every word of spoken language.

Signs, whatever their character, could not become associated with

words, or suggest them, until words had been learned. The first step,

therefore, was to explain by means of natural signs, as distinct from

the new signs styled methodical, the meaning of a passage of verbal

language. Then each word was taken separately and a sign affixed to

it, which was to be learned by the pupil. If the word represented a

physical object, the sign would be the same as the natural sign, and

would be already understood, provided the object had been seen and was

familiar; and in all cases the endeavor was to have the sign convey

as strong a suggestion of the meaning of the word as was possible. The

final step was to gesticulate these signs, thus associated with words,

in the exact order in which the words were to stand in a sentence.

Then the pupil would write the very words desired in the exact order

desired. If the previous explanation in natural signs had not been

sufficiently full and careful, he would not understand the passage.

The methodical signs did not profess to give him the ideas, except

in a very limited degree, but only to show him how to express ideas

according to the order and methods of spoken language. As there were

no repetitions of time in narratives in the sign language, it became

necessary to unite with the word-sign for verbs others, to indicate

the different tenses of the verbs, and so by degrees the methodical

signs not only were required to comprise signs for every word, but

also, with every such sign, a grammatical sign to indicate what part

of speech the word was, and, in the case of verbs, still other signs

to show their tenses and corresponding inflections. It was, as Dr.

Peet remarks, a cumbrous and unwieldly vehicle, ready at every step to

break down under the weight of its own machinery. Nevertheless, it was

industriously taught in all our schools from the date of the founding

of the American Asylum in 1817 down to about the year 1835, when it

was abandoned.

 

The collection of narratives, speeches, and dialogues of our Indians

in sign language, first systematically commenced by the present

writer, several examples of which are in this paper, has not yet

been sufficiently complete and exact to establish conclusions on the

subject of the syntactic arrangement of their signs. So far as

studied it seems to be similar to that of deaf-mutes and to retain the

characteristic of pantomimes in figuring first the principal idea and

adding the accessories successively in the order of importance, the

ideographic __EXPRESSION__s being in the ideologic order. If the examples

given are not enough to establish general rules of construction, they

at least show the natural order of ideas in the minds of the gesturers

and the several modes of inversion by which they pass from the known

to the unknown, beginning with the dominant idea or that supposed

to be best known. Some special instances of expedients other than

strictly syntactic coming under the machinery broadly designated as

grammar may be mentioned.

 

 

DEGREES OF COMPARISON.

 

Degrees of comparison are frequently expressed, both by deaf-mutes

and by Indians, by adding to the generic or descriptive sign that

for "big" or "little." _Damp_ would be "wet--little"; _cool_,

"cold--little"; _hot_, "warm--much." The amount or force of motion

also often indicates corresponding diminution or augmentation, but

sometimes expresses a different shade of meaning, as is reported by

Dr. Matthews with reference to the sign for _bad_ and _contempt_, see

page 411. This change in degree of motion is, however, often used for

emphasis only, as is the raising of the voice in speech or italicizing

and capitalizing in print. The Prince of Wied gives an instance of a

comparison in his sign for _excessively hard_, first giving that for

_hard_, viz: Open the left hand, and strike against it several times

with the right (with the backs of the fingers). Afterwards he gives

_hard, excessively_, as follows: Sign for _hard_, then place the left

index-finger upon the right shoulder, at the same time extend

and raise the right arm high, extending the index-finger upward,

perpendicularly.

 

Rev. G.L. Deffenbaugh describes what may perhaps be regarded as an

intensive sign among the Sahaptins in connection with the sign for

_good_; i.e., _very good_. "Place the left hand in position in front

of the body with all fingers closed except first, thumb lying on

second, then with forefinger of right hand extended in same way point

to end of forefinger of left hand, move it up the arm till near the

body and then to a point in front of breast to make the sign _good_."

For the latter see EXTRACTS FROM DICTIONARY page 487, _infra_. The

same special motion is prefixed to the sign for _bad_ as an intensive.

 

Another intensive is reported by Mr. Benjamin Clark, interpreter at

the Kaiowa, Comanche, and Wichita agency, Indian Territory, in which

after the sign for _bad_ is made, that for _strong_ is used by the

Comanches as follows: Place the clinched left fist horizontally in

front of the breast, back forward, then pass the palmar side of the

right fist downward in front of the knuckles of the left.

 

Dr. W.H. Corbusier, assistant surgeon U.S.A., writes as follows in

response to a special inquiry on the subject: "By carrying the right

fist from behind forward over the left, instead of beginning the

motion six inches above it, the Arapaho sign for _strong_ is made. For

_brave_, first strike the chest over the heart with the right fist two

or three times, and then make the sign for _strong_.

 

"The sign for _strong_ expresses the superlative when used with other

signs; with coward it denotes a base coward; with hunger, starvation;

and with sorrow, bitter sorrow. I have not seen it used with the sign

for pleasure or that of hunger, nor can I learn that it is ever used

with them."

 

 

OPPOSITION.

 

The principle of opposition, as between the right and left hands, and

between the thumb and forefinger and the little finger, appears among

Indians in some __EXPRESSION__s for "above," "below," "forward," "back,"

but is not so common as among the methodical, distinguished from the

natural, signs of deaf-mutes. It is also connected with the attempt

to express degrees of comparison. _Above_ is sometimes expressed by

holding the left hand horizontal, and in front of the body, fingers

open, but joined together, palm upward. The right hand is then placed

horizontal, fingers open but joined, palm downward, an inch or more

above the left, and raised and lowered a few inches several times, the

left hand being perfectly still. If the thing indicated as "above"

is only a _little_ above, this concludes the sign, but if it be

_considerably_ above, the right hand is raised higher and higher as

the height to be expressed is greater, until, if _enormously_ above,

the Indian will raise his right hand as high as possible, and, fixing

his eyes on the zenith, emit a duplicate grunt, the more prolonged as

he desires to express the greater height. All this time the left hand

is held perfectly motionless. _Below_ is gestured in a corresponding

manner, all movement being made by the left or lower hand, the right

being held motionless, palm downward, and the eyes looking down.