Mental Evolution in Man 22

Mental Evolution in Man 22

We must next briefly consider the remaining feature in the psychology

of talking birds to which Dr. Wilks has drawn attention, namely, that

of inventing sounds of their own contrivance to be used as designative

of objects and qualities, or expressive of desires—sounds which may

be either imitative of the things designated, or wholly arbitrary.

And this, I think, is a most important feature; for it serves still

more closely to connect the faculty of vocal sign-making in animals

with the faculty of speech in man. Thus, turning first to the case of

a child beginning to speak, as Dr. Wilks points out—and nearly all

writers on the philosophy of language have noticed—“baby talk” is to

a large extent onomatopoetic. And although this is in part due to an

inheritance of “nursery language,” the very fact that nursery language

has come to contain so large an element of onomatopœia is additional

proof, were any required, that this kind of word-invention appeals with

ready ease to the infant understanding. But, on the other hand, no one

can have attended to the early vocabulary of any child without having

observed a fertile tendency to the invention of words wholly arbitrary.

As this spontaneous invention of arbitrary words by young children

will be found of importance in later stages of my exposition, I will

conclude the present chapter by presenting evidence to show the extent

to which, under favourable circumstances, it may proceed. Meanwhile,

however, I desire to point out that all such cases of the invention of

arbitrary vocal signs by young children differ from the analogous cases

furnished by parrots only in that the former are usually articulate,

while the latter are usually not so. But this difference is easily

explained when we remember that hereditary tendency makes as strongly

in the direction of inarticulate sounds in the case of the bird, as in

the case of the infant it makes in the direction of articulate.

 

There still remains one feature in the psychology of talking birds to

which I must now draw prominent attention. So far as I can ascertain it

has not been mentioned by any previous writer, although I should think

it is one that can scarcely have escaped the notice of any attentive

observer of these animals. I allude to the aptitude which intelligent

parrots display of extending their articulate signs from one object,

quality, or action, to another which happens to be strikingly similar

in kind. For example, one of the parrots which I kept under observation

in my own house learnt to imitate the barking of a terrier, which

also lived in the house. After a time this barking was used by the

parrot as a denotative sound, or proper name, for the terrier—_i.e._

whenever the bird saw the dog it used to bark, whether or not the dog

did so. Next, the parrot ceased to apply this denotative name to that

particular dog, but invariably did so to any other, or unfamiliar, dog

which visited the house. Now, the fact that the parrot ceased to bark

when it saw my terrier after it had begun to bark when it saw other

dogs, clearly showed that it distinguished between individual dogs,

while receptually perceiving their class resemblance. In other words,

the parrot’s name for an individual dog became extended into a generic

name for all dogs. Observations of this kind might no doubt have been

largely multiplied, if observers had thought it worth while to record

such apparently trivial facts.

 

* * * * *

 

In this general survey of articulate language, then, we have reached

these conclusions, all of which I take to be established by the

evidence of direct and adequate observation.

 

There are four divisions of the faculty of articulate sign-making

to be distinguished:—namely, meaningless imitation, instinctive

articulation, understanding words irrespective of tones, and

intentional use of words as signs. Cases falling under the first

division do not require consideration. Cases belonging to the second,

being due to hereditary influence, occur only in infants, uneducated

deaf-mutes and idiots. Understanding of words is shown by animals

and idiots as well as by infants, and implies, _per se_, a higher

development of the sign-making faculty than does the understanding of

tones, or gestures—unless, of course, the latter happen to be of as

purely conventional a character as words. And, lastly, concerning the

intentional use of words as signs, we have noticed the following facts.

 

Talking birds—which happen to be the only animals whose vocal organs

admit of uttering articulate sounds—show themselves capable of

correctly using proper names, noun-substantives, adjectives, verbs,

and appropriate phrases, although they do so by association alone, or

without appreciation of grammatical structure. Words are to them vocal

gestures, as immediately expressive of the logic of recepts as any

other signs would be. Nevertheless, it is important to observe that

this faculty of vocal gesticulation is the first phase of articulate

speech in a growing child, is the last to disappear in the descending

scale of idiocy, and is exhibited by talking birds in so considerable

a degree that the animals even invent names (whether by making

distinctive sounds, as a particular squeak for “nuts,” or by applying

words to designate objects, as “half-past-two” for the name of the

coachman)—such invention often clearly having an onomatopoetic origin,

though likewise often wholly arbitrary.

 

* * * * *

 

I will now conclude this chapter by detailing evidence to show the

extent to which, under favourable circumstances, young children will

thus likewise invent arbitrary signs, which, however, for reasons

already mentioned, are here almost invariably of an articulate kind.

It would be easy to draw this evidence from sundry writers on the

psychogenesis of children; but it will be sufficient to give a few

quotations from an able writer who has already taken the trouble to

collect the more remarkable instances which have been recorded of the

fact in question. The writer to whom I allude is Mr. Horatio Hale, and

the paper from which I quote is published in the _Proceedings of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science_, vol. xxxv., 1886.

 

“In the year 1860 two children, twin boys, were born in a respectable

family residing in a suburb of Boston. They were in part of German

descent, their mother’s father having come from Germany to America at

the age of seventeen; but the German language, we are told, was never

spoken in the household. The children were so closely alike that their

grandmother, who often came to see them, could only distinguish them by

some coloured string or ribbon tied around the arm. As often happens in

such cases, an intense affection existed between them, and they were

constantly together. The remainder of their interesting story will be

best told in the words of the writer, to whose enlightened zeal for

science we are indebted for our knowledge of the facts.

 

“At the usual age these twins began to talk, but, strange to say, not

their ‘mother-tongue.’ They had a language of their own, and no pains

could induce them to speak anything else. It was in vain that a little

sister, five years older than they, tried to make them speak their

native language—as it would have been. They persistently refused to

utter a syllable of English. Not even the usual first words, ‘papa,’

‘mamma,’ ‘father,’ ‘mother,’ it is said, did they ever speak; and,

said the lady who gave this information to the writer,—who was an

aunt of the children, and whose home was with them,—they were never

known during this interval to call their mother by that name. They had

their own name for her, but never the English. In fact, though they

had the usual affections, were rejoiced to see their father at his

returning home each night, playing with him, &c., they would seem to

have been otherwise completely taken up, absorbed with each other....

The children had not yet been to school; for, not being able to speak

their ‘own English,’ it seemed impossible to send them from home. They

thus passed the days, playing and talking together in their own speech,

with all the liveliness and volubility of common children. Their accent

was German—as it seemed to the family. They had regular words, a few

of which the family learned sometimes to distinguish; as that, for

example, for carriage, which, on hearing one pass in the street, they

would exclaim out, and run to the window. This word for carriage, we

are told in another place, was ‘ni-si-boo-a,’ of which, it is added,

the syllables were sometimes so repeated that they made a much longer

word.”

 

The next case is quoted by Mr. Hale from Dr. E. R. Hun, who recorded

it in the _Monthly Journal of Psychological Medicine_, 1868.

 

“The subject of this observation is a girl aged four and a half years,

sprightly, intelligent, and in good health. The mother observed, when

she was two years old, that she was backward in speaking, and only

used the words ‘papa’ and ‘mamma.’ After that she began to use words

of her own invention, and though she understood readily what she said,

never employed the words used by others. Gradually she enlarged her

vocabulary until it has reached the extent described below. She has

a brother eighteen months younger than herself, who has learned her

language, so that they can talk freely together. He, however, seems

to have adopted it only because he has more intercourse with her than

the others; and in some instances he will use a proper word with his

mother, and his sister’s word with her. She, however, persists in

using only her own words, though her parents, who are uneasy about

her peculiarity of speech, make great efforts to induce her to use

proper words. As to the possibility of her having learned these words

from others, it is proper to state that her parents are persons of

cultivation, who use only the English language. The mother has learned

French, but never uses the language in conversation. The domestics,

as well as the nurses, speak English without any peculiarities, and

the child has heard even less than usual of what is called baby-talk.

Some of the words and phrases have a resemblance to the French; but

it is certain that no person using that language has frequented the

house, and it is doubtful whether the child has on any occasion heard

it spoken. There seems to be no difficulty about the vocal organs. She

uses her language readily and freely, and when she is with her brother

they converse with great rapidity and fluency.

 

“Dr. Hun then gives the vocabulary, which, he states, was such as he

had ‘been able at different times to compile from the child herself,

and especially from the report of her mother.’ From this statement we

may infer that the list probably did not include the whole number of

words in this child-language. It comprises, in fact, only twenty-one

distinct words, though many of these were used in a great variety of

acceptations, indicated by the order in which they were arranged, or by

compounding them in various ways....

 

“Three or four of the words, as Dr. Hun remarks, bear an evident

resemblance to the French, and others might, by a slight change,

be traced to that language. He was unable, it will be seen, to say

positively that the girl had never heard the language spoken; and it

seems not unlikely that, if not among the domestics, at least among

the persons who visited them, there may have been one who amused

herself, innocently enough, by teaching the child a few words of

that tongue. It is, indeed, by no means improbable that the peculiar

linguistic instinct may thus have been first aroused in the mind

of the girl, when just beginning to speak. Among the words showing

this resemblance are _feu_ (pronounced, we are expressly told, like

the French word), used to signify ‘fire, light, cigar, sun;’ _too_

(the French ‘tout’), meaning ‘all, everything;’ and _ne pa_ (whether

pronounced as in French, or otherwise, we are not told), signifying

‘not.’ _Petee-petee_, the name given to the boy by his sister, is

apparently the French ‘petit,’ little; and _ma_, ‘I,’ may be from the

French ‘moi,’ ‘me.’ If, however, the child was really able to catch

and remember so readily these foreign sounds at such an early age,

and to interweave them into a speech of her own, it would merely show

how readily and strongly in her case the language-making faculty was developed