Sign Language Among North American Indians 4

Sign Language Among North American Indians 4

The discussion is now, however, varied by the suggested possibility

that man at some time may have existed without any oral language. It

is conceded by some writers that mental images or representations can

be formed without any connection with sound, and may at least serve

for thought, though not for __EXPRESSION__. It is certain that concepts,

however formed, can be expressed by other means than sound. One mode

of this __EXPRESSION__ is by gesture, and there is less reason to believe

that gestures commenced as the interpretation of, or substitute for

words than that the latter originated in, and served to translate

gestures. Many arguments have been advanced to prove that gesture

language preceded articulate speech and formed the earliest attempt

at communication, resulting from the interacting subjective and

objective conditions to which primitive man was exposed. Some of the

facts on which deductions have been based, made in accordance with

well-established modes of scientific research from study of the lower

animals, children, idiots, the lower types of mankind, and deaf-mutes,

will be briefly mentioned.

 

 

 

_GESTURES OF THE LOWER ANIMALS._

 

Emotional __EXPRESSION__ in the features of man is to be considered in

reference to the fact that the special senses either have their seat

in, or are in close relation to the face, and that so large a number

of nerves pass to it from the brain. The same is true of the lower

animals, so that it would be inferred, as is the case, that the faces

of those animals are also expressive of emotion. There is also noticed

among them an exhibition of emotion by corporeal action. This is the

class of gestures common to them with the earliest made by man, as

above mentioned, and it is reasonable to suppose that those were made

by man at the time when, if ever, he was, like the animals, destitute

of articulate speech. The articulate cries uttered by some animals,

especially some birds, are interesting as connected with the principle

of imitation to which languages in part owe their origin, but in the

cases of forced imitation, the mere acquisition of a vocal trick,

they only serve to illustrate that power of imitation, and are without

significance. Sterne's starling, after his cage had been opened, would

have continued to complain that he could not get out. If the bird had

uttered an instinctive cry of distress when in confinement and a note

of joy on release, there would have been a nearer approach to language

than if it had clearly pronounced many sentences. Such notes and

cries of animals, many of which are connected with reproduction and

nutrition, are well worth more consideration than can now be given,

but regarding them generally it is to be questioned if they are so

expressive as the gestures of the same animals. It is contended that

the bark of a dog is distinguishable into fear, defiance, invitation,

and a note of warning, but it also appears that those notes have been

known only since the animal has been domesticated. The gestures of

the dog are far more readily distinguished than his bark, as in his

preparing for attack, or caressing his master, resenting an injury,

begging for food, or simply soliciting attention. The chief modern

use of his tail appears to be to express his ideas and sensations. But

some recent experiments of Prof. A. GRAHAM BELL, no less eminent from

his work in artificial speech than in telephones, shows that animals

are more physically capable of pronouncing articulate sounds than has

been supposed. He informed the writer that he recently succeeded by

manipulation in causing an English terrier to form a number of the

sounds of our letters, and particularly brought out from it the words

"How are you, Grandmamma?" with distinctness. This tends to prove

that only absence of brain power has kept animals from acquiring true

speech. The remarkable vocal instrument of the parrot could be used in

significance as well as in imitation, if its brain had been developed

beyond the point of __EXPRESSION__ by gesture, in which latter the bird is

expert.

 

The gestures of monkeys, whose hands and arms can be used, are nearly

akin to ours. Insects communicate with each other almost entirely by

means of the antennæ. Animals in general which, though not deaf, can

not be taught by sound, frequently have been by signs, and probably

all of them understand man's gestures better than his speech. They

exhibit signs to one another with obvious intention, and they also

have often invented them as a means of obtaining their wants from man.

 

 

 

_GESTURES OF YOUNG CHILDREN._

 

The wishes and emotions of very young children are conveyed in a

small number of sounds, but in a great variety of gestures and facial

__EXPRESSION__s. A child's gestures are intelligent long in advance of

speech; although very early and persistent attempts are made to give

it instruction in the latter but none in the former, from the time

when it begins _risu cognoscere matrem_. It learns words only as they

are taught, and learns them through the medium of signs which are not

expressly taught. Long after familiarity with speech, it consults

the gestures and facial __EXPRESSION__s of its parents and nurses as

if seeking thus to translate or explain their words. These facts

are important in reference to the biologic law that the order of

development of the individual is the same as that of the species.

 

Among the instances of gestures common to children throughout the

world is that of protruding the lips, or pouting, when somewhat angry

or sulky. The same gesture is now made by the anthropoid apes and is

found strongly marked in the savage tribes of man. It is noticed by

evolutionists that animals retain during early youth, and subsequently

lose, characters once possessed by their progenitors when adult, and

still retained by distinct species nearly related to them.

 

The fact is not, however, to be ignored that children invent words as

well as signs with as natural an origin for the one as for the other.

An interesting case was furnished to the writer by Prof. BELL of an

infant boy who used a combination of sounds given as "nyum-nyum,"

an evident onomatope of gustation, to mean "good," and not only in

reference to articles of food relished but as applied to persons of

whom the child was fond, rather in the abstract idea of "niceness"

in general. It is a singular coincidence that a bright young girl,

a friend of the writer, in a letter describing a juvenile feast,

invented the same __EXPRESSION__, with nearly the same spelling, as

characteristic of her sensations regarding the delicacies provided.

The Papuans met by Dr. Comrie also called "eating" _nam-nam_. But the

evidence of all such cases of the voluntary use of articulate speech

by young children is qualified by the fact that it has been inherited

from very many generations, if not quite so long as the faculty of

gesture.

 

 

 

_GESTURES IN MENTAL DISORDER._

 

The insane understand and obey gestures when they have no knowledge

whatever of words. It is also found that semi-idiotic children who

cannot be taught more than the merest rudiments of speech, can receive

a considerable amount of information through signs, and can express

themselves by them. Sufferers from aphasia continue to use appropriate

gestures after their words have become uncontrollable. It is further

noticeable in them that mere ejaculations, or sounds which are only

the result of a state of feeling, instead of a desire to express

thought, are generally articulated with accuracy. Patients who have

been in the habit of swearing preserve their fluency in that division

of their vocabulary.

 

 

 

_UNINSTRUCTED DEAF-MUTES._

 

The signs made by congenital and uninstructed deaf-mutes to be now

considered are either strictly natural signs, invented by themselves,

or those of a colloquial character used by such mutes where

associated. The accidental or merely suggestive signs peculiar to

families, one member of which happens to be a mute, are too much

affected by the other members of the family to be of certain

value. Those, again, which are taught in institutions have become

conventional and designedly adapted to translation into oral speech,

although founded by the abbé de l'Épée, followed by the abbé Sicard,

in the natural signs first above mentioned.

 

A great change has doubtless occurred in the estimation of congenital

deaf-mutes since the Justinian Code, which consigned them forever to

legal infancy, as incapable of intelligence, and classed them with the

insane. Yet most modern writers, for instance Archbishop Whately and

Max Müller, have declared that deaf-mutes could not think until after

having been instructed. It cannot be denied that the deaf-mute thinks

after his instruction either in the ordinary gesture signs or in

the finger alphabet, or more lately in artificial speech. By this

instruction he has become master of a highly-developed language, such

as English or French, which he can read, write, and actually talk,

but that foreign language he has obtained through the medium of signs.

This is a conclusive proof that signs constitute a real language and

one which admits of thought, for no one can learn a foreign language

unless he had some language of his own, whether by descent or

acquisition, by which it could be translated, and such translation

into the new language could not even be commenced unless the mind had

been already in action and intelligently using the original language

for that purpose. In fact the use by deaf-mutes of signs originating

in themselves exhibits a creative action of mind and innate faculty

of __EXPRESSION__ beyond that of ordinary speakers who acquired language

without conscious effort. The thanks of students, both of philology

and psychology, are due to Prof. SAMUEL PORTER, of the National Deaf

Mute College, for his response to the question, "Is thought possible

without language?" published in the _Princeton Review_ for January,

1880.

 

With regard to the sounds uttered by deaf-mutes, the same explanation

of heredity may be made as above, regarding the words invented by

young children. Congenital deaf-mutes at first make the same sounds

as hearing children of the same age, and, often being susceptible

to vibrations of the air, are not suspected of being deaf. When that

affliction is ascertained to exist, all oral utterances from the

deaf-mute are habitually repressed by the parents.