THE NAME CHILD.
Liebe Kinder haben viele Namen
[Dear children have many names].--_German Proverb_.
Child or boy, my darling, which you will.--_Swinburne_.
Men ever had, and ever will have, leave
To coin new words well-suited to the age.
Words are like leaves, some wither every year,
And every year a younger race succeeds.--_Roscommon_.
_Child and its Synonyms_.
Our word _child_--the good old English term; for both _babe_
and _infant_ are borrowed--simply means the "product of the womb"
(compare Gothic _kilthei_, "womb"). The Lowland-Scotch dialect
still preserves an old word for "child" in _bairn_, cognate with
Anglo-Saxon _bearn_, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, and Gothic
_barn_ (the Gothic had a diminutive _barnilo_, "baby"),
Sanskrit _bharna_, which signifies "the borne one," "that which is
born," from the primitive Indo-European root _bhr_, "to bear, to
carry in the womb," whence our "to _bear_" and the German
"ge-_bären_." _Son_, which finds its cognates in all the
principal Aryan dialects, except Latin, and perhaps Celtic,--the Greek
[Greek: yios] is for [Greek: syios], and is the same word,--a widespread
term for "male child, or descendant," originally meant, as the Old Irish
_suth_, "birth, fruit," and the Sanskrit _sû_, "to bear, to
give birth to," indicate, "the fruit of the womb, the begotten"--an
expression which meets us time and again in the pages of the Hebrew
Bible. The words _offspring_, _issue_, _seed_, used in
higher diction, explain themselves and find analogues all over the
world. To a like category belong Sanskrit _gárbha_, "brood of
birds, child, shoot"; Pali _gabbha_, "womb, embryo, child"; Old
High German _chilburra_, "female lamb"; Gothic _kalbô_,
"female lamb one year old"; German _Kalb_; English _calf_;
Greek [Greek: _delphus_], "womb"; whence [Greek: _adelphus_],
"brother," literally "born of the same womb." Here we see, in the words
for their young, the idea of the kinship of men and animals in which the
primitive races believed. The "brought forth" or "born" is also the
signification of the Niskwalli Indian _ba'-ba-ad_, "infant";
_de-bád-da_, "infant, son"; Maya _al_, "son or daughter of a
woman"; Cakchiquel 4_ahol_, "son," and like terms in many other
tongues. Both the words in our language employed to denote the child
before birth are borrowed. _Embryo_, with its cognates in the
modern tongues of Europe, comes from the Greek [Greek: _embruon_],
"the fruit of the womb before delivery; birth; the embryo, foetus; a
lamb newly born, a kid." The word is derived from _eu_, "within";
and _bruo_, "I am full of anything, I swell or teem with"; in a
transitive sense, "I break forth." The radical idea is clearly
"swelling," and cognates are found in Greek [Greek: _bruon_],
"moss"; and German _Kraut_, "plant, vegetable." _Foetus_ comes
to us from Latin, where it meant "a bearing, offspring, fruit; bearing,
dropping, hatching,--of animals, plants, etc.; fruit, produce,
offspring, progeny, brood." The immediate derivation of the word is
_feto_, "I breed," whence also _effetus_, "having brought
forth young, worn out by bearing, effete." _Feto_ itself is from an
old verb _feuere_, "to generate, to produce," possibly related to
_fui_ and our _be_. The radical signification of _foetus_
then is "that which is bred, or brought to be"; and from the same root
_fe_ are derived _feles_, "cat" (the fruitful animal);
_fe-num_, "hay"; _fe-cundus_, "fertile"; _fe-lix,_
"happy" (fruitful). The corresponding verb in Greek is [Greek:
_phuein_], "to grow, to spring forth, to come into being," whence
the following: [Greek: _phusis_], "a creature, birth,
nature,"--nature is "all that has had birth"; [Greek: _phuton_]
"something grown, plant, tree, creature, child"; [Greek: _phulae,
philon_] "race, clan, tribe,"--the "aggregate of those born in a
certain way or place"; [Greek: _phus_], "son"; [Greek:
_phusas_], "father," etc.
In English, we formerly had the phrase "to look _babies_ in the
eyes," and we still speak of the _pupil_ of the eye, the old
folk-belief having been able to assert itself in the every-day speech of
the race,--the thought that the soul looked out of the windows of the
eyes. In Latin, _pupilla pupila,_ "girl, pupil of the eye," is a
diminutive of _pupa_ (_puppa_), "girl, damsel, doll, puppet";
other related words are _pupulus_, "little boy"; _pupillus_,
"orphan, ward," our _pupil_; _pupulus_, "little child, boy";
_pupus_, "child, boy." The radical of all these is _pu_, "to
beget"; whence are derived also the following: _puer_, "child,
boy"; _puella_ (for _puerula_), a diminutive of _puer_,
"girl"; _pusus_, "boy"; _pusio_, "little boy,"
_pusillus_; "a very little boy"; _putus_, "boy";
_putillus_, "little boy"; _putilla_, "little girl,"--here
belongs also _pusillanimus_, "small-minded, boy-minded";
_pubis_, "ripe, adult"; _pubertas_, "puberty, maturity";
_pullus_, "a young animal, a fowl," whence our _pullet_. In
Greek we find the cognate words [Greek: polos] "a young animal," related
to our _foal, filly_; [Greek: polion], "pony," and, as some,
perhaps too venturesome, have suggested, [Greek: pais], "child," with
its numerous derivatives in the scientifical nomenclature and
phraseology of to-day. In Sanskrit we have _putra_, "son," a word
familiar as a suffix in river-names,--_Brahmaputra_, "son of
Brahma,"--_pota_, "the young of an animal," etc. Skeat thinks that
our word _boy_, borrowed from Low German and probably related to
the Modern High German _Bube_, whence the familiar "bub" of
American colloquial speech, is cognate with Latin _pupus_.
To this stock of words our _babe_, with its diminutive _baby_,
seems not akin. Skeat, rejecting the theory that it is a reduplicative
child-word, like _papa_, sees in it merely a modification
(infantine, perhaps) of the Celtic _maban_, diminutive of
_mab_, "son," and hence related to _maid_, the particular
etymology of which is discussed elsewhere.
_Infant_, also, is a loan-word in English. In Latin, _infans_
was the coinage of some primitive student of children, of some
prehistoric anthropologist, who had a clear conception of "infancy" as
"the period of inability to speak,"--for _infans_ signifies neither
more nor less than "not speaking, unable to speak." The word, like our
"childish," assumed also the meanings "child, young, fresh, new, silly,"
with a diminutive _infantulus_. The Latin word _infans_ has
its representatives in French and other Romance languages, and has given
rise to _enfanter_, "to give birth to a child," _enfantement_,
"labour," two of the few words relating to child-birth in which the
child is directly remembered. The history of the words _infantry_,
"foot-soldiers," and _Infanta_, "a princess of the blood royal" in
Spain (even though she be married), illustrates a curious development of
thought.
Our word _daughter_, which finds cognates in Teutonic, Slavonic,
Armenian, Zend, Sanskrit, and Greek, Skeat would derive from the root
_dugh_, "to milk," the "daughter" being primitively the "milker,"
--the "milkmaid,"--which would remove the term from the list of names
for "child" in the proper sense of the word. Kluge, however, with
justice perhaps, considers this etymology improbable.
A familiar phrase in English is "babes and sucklings," the last term of
which, cognate with German _Säugling_, meets with analogues far and
wide among the peoples of the earth. The Latin words for children in
relation to their parents are _filius_ (diminutive _filiolus_),
"son," and _filia_ (diminutive _filiola_), "daughter,"
which have a long list of descendants in the modern Neo-Latin or Romance
languages,--French _fils, fille, filleul_, etc.; Italian _figlio,
figlia_, etc. According to Skeat, _filius_ signified originally
"infant," perhaps "suckling," from _felare_, "to suck," the radical
of which, _fe_ (Indo-European _dhe_), appears also in
_femina_, "woman," and _femella_, "female," the "sucklers"
_par excellence_. In Greek the cognate words are [Greek:
_titthae_], "nurse," _thaelus_, "female," _thaelae_,
"teat," etc.; in Lithuanian, _dels_, "son." With _nonagan_,
"teat, breast," are cognate in the Delaware Indian language
_nonoshellaan_, "to suckle," _nonetschik_, "suckling," and
other primitive tongues have similar series.
The Modern High German word for child is _Kind_, which, as a
substantive, finds representatives neither in Gothic nor in early
English, but has cognates in the Old Norse _kunde_, "son," Gothic
_-kunds_, Anglo-Saxon _-kund_, a suffix signifying "coming
from, originating from." The ultimate radical of the word is the
Indo-European root _gen_ (Teutonic _ken_), "to bear, to
produce," whence have proceeded also _kin_, Gothic _kuni_;
_queen_, Gothic _qvêns_, "woman"; _king_, Modern High
German _König_, originally signifying perhaps "one of high origin";
Greek _genos_ and its derivatives; Latin _genus, gens, gigno_;
Lithuanian _gentis_, "relative"; Sanskrit _janas_, "kin,
stock," _janús_, "creature, kin, birth," _jantú_, "child,
being, stock," _jâtá_, "son." _Kind_, therefore, while not the
same word as our _child_, has the same primitive meaning, "the
produced one," and finds further cognates in _kid_ and _colt_,
names applied to the young of certain animals, and the first of which,
in the slang of to-day, is applied to children also. In some parts of
Germany and Switzerland _Kind_ has the sense of _boy_; in
Thuringia, for example, people speak of _zwei Kinder und ein
Mädchen,_ "two boys and a girl." From the same radical sprang the
Modern High German _Knabe_, Old High German _chnabo_, "boy,
youth, young fellow, servant," and its cognates, including our English
_knave_, with its changed meaning, and possibly also German
_Knecht_ and English _knight_, of somewhat similar import
originally.
To the same original source we trace back Greek [Greek:
_genetaer_], Latin _genitor_, "parent," and their cognates, in
all of which the idea of _genesis_ is prominent. Here belong, in
Greek: [Greek: _genesis_], "origin, birth, beginning"; [Greek:
_gynae_], "woman"; [Greek: _genea_], "family, race"; [Greek:
_geinomai_], "I beget, produce, bring forth, am born"; [Greek:
_gignomai_], "I come into a new state of being, become, am born."
In Latin: _gigno_, "I beget, bring forth"; _gens_, "clan,
race, nation,"--those born in a certain way; _ingens_, "vast, huge,
great,"--"not _gens_," _i.e._ "born beyond or out of its
kind"; _gentilis_, "belonging to the same clan, race, tribe,
nation," then, with various turns of meaning, "national, foreign,"
whence our _gentile, genteel, gentle, gentry,_ etc.; _genus_,
"birth, race, sort, kind"; _ingenium_, "innate quality, natural
disposition"; _ingeniosus_, "of good natural abilities, born
well-endowed," hence _ingenious; ingenuus_, "native, free-born,
worthy of a free man," hence "frank, _ingenuous_";
_progenies_, "descent, descendants, offspring, progeny";
_gener_, "son-in-law"; _genius_, "innate superior nature,
tutelary deity, the god born to a place," hence the _genius_, who
is "born," not "made"; _genuinus_, "innate, born-in,
_genuine_"; _indigena_, "native, born-there, indigenous";
_generosus_, "of high, noble birth," hence "noble-minded,
_generous_"; _genero_, "I beget, produce, engender, create,
procreate," and its derivatives _degenero, regenero_, etc., with
the many words springing from them. From the same radical _gen_
comes the Latin _(g)nascor_, "I am born," whose stem _(g)na_
is seen also in _natio_, "the collection of those born," or "the
birth," and _natura_, "the world of birth,"--like Greek [Greek:
_phnsis_],--for "nations" and "nature" have both "sprung into
being." The Latin _germen_ (our _germ_), which signified
"sprig, offshoot, young bud, sprout, fruit, embryo," probably meant
originally simply "growth," from the root _ker_, "to make to grow."
From the same Indo-European radical have come the Latin _creare_,
"to create, make, produce," with its derivatives _procreare_ and
_creator_, which we now apply to the Supreme Being, as the "maker"
or "producer" of all things. Akin are also _crescere_, "to come
forth, to arise, to appear, to increase, to grow, to spring, to be
born," and _Ceres_, the name of the goddess of agriculture (growth
and creation), whence our word _cereal_; and in Greek [Greek:
Kronos], the son of Uranus (Heaven) and Gæa (Earth), [Greek: kratos],
"strength," and its derivatives ("democracy," etc.).
Another interesting Latin word is _pario_, "I bring forth,
produce," whence _parens_, "producer, parent," _partus_,
"birth, bearing, bringing forth; young, offspring, foetus, embryo of any
creature," _parturio, parturitio_, etc. _Pario_ is used alike
of human beings, animals, birds, fish, while _parturio_ is applied
to women and animals, and, by Virgil, even to trees,--_parturit
arbos_, "the tree is budding forth,"--and by other writers to objects
even less animate.
In the Latin _enitor_, "I bring forth or bear children or
young,"--properly, "I struggle, strive, make efforts,"--we meet with the
idea of "labour," now so commonly associated with child-bearing, and
deriving from the old comparison of the tillage of the soil and the
bearing of the young. This association existed in Hebrew also, and Cain,
the first-born of Adam, was the first agriculturist. We still say the
tree _bears_ fruit, the land _bears_ crops, is _fertile_,
and the most characteristic word in English belonging to the category in
question is "to _bear_" children, cognate with Modern High German
_ge-bären_, Gothic _gabairan_, Latin _ferre_ (whence
_fertilis_), Greek _[Greek: ferein]_, Sanskrit _bhri_,
etc., all from the Indo-European root _bher_, "to carry"--compare
the use of _tragen_ in Modern High German: _sie trägt ein Kind
unter dem Herzen_. The passive verb is "to be _born_" literally,
"to be borne, to be carried, produced," and the noun corresponding,
_birth_, cognate with German _Geburt_, and Old Norse
_burthr_, which meant "embryo" as well. Related ideas are seen in
_burden_, and in the Latin, _fors, fortuna_, for "fortune" is
but that which is "borne" or "produced, brought forth," just as the
Modern High German _Heil_, "fortune, luck," is probably connected
with the Indo-European radical _gen_, "to produce."
Corresponding to the Latin _parentes_, in meaning, we have the
Gothic _berusjos_, "the bearers," or "parents"; we still use in
English, "forbears," in the sense of ancestors. The good old English
phrase "with child," which finds its analogues in many other languages,
has, through false modesty, been almost driven out of literature, as it
has been out of conversational language, by _pregnant_, which comes
to us from the Latins, who also used _gravidus_,--a word we now
apply only to animals, especially dogs and ants,--and _enceinte_,
borrowed from French, and referring to the ancient custom of girding a
woman who was with child. Similarly barren of direct reference to the
child are _accouchement_, which we have borrowed from French, and
the German _Entbindung_.
In German, Grimm enumerates, among other phrases relating to
child-birth, the following, the particular meanings and uses of which
are explained in his great dictionary: _Schwanger, gross zum Kinde,
zum Kinde gehen, zum Kinde arbeiten, um's Kind kommen, mit Kinde, ein
Kind tragen, Kindesgrosz, Kindes schwer, Kinder haben, Kinder bekommen,
Kinder kriegen, niederkommen, entbinden,_ and the quaint and
beautiful _eines Kindes genesen_,--all used of the mother. Applied
to both parents we find _Kinder machen_, _Kinder bekommen_
(now used more of the mother), _Kinder erzeugen_ (more recently, of
the father only), _Kinder erzielen_.
Our English word _girl_ is really a diminutive (from a stem
_gir_, seen in Old Low German _gör_, "a child") from some Low
German dialect, and, though it now signifies only "a female child, a
young woman," in Middle English _gerl_ (_girl, gurl_) was
applied to a young person of either sex. In the Swiss dialects to-day
_gurre_, or _gurrli_, is a name given to a "girl" in a
depreciatory sense, like our own "girl-boy." In many primitive tongues
there do not appear to be special words for "son" and "daughter," or for
"boy" and "girl," as distinguished from each other, these terms being
rendered "male-child (man-child)," and "female-child (woman-child)"
respectively. The "man-child" of the King James' version of the
Scriptures belongs in this category. In not a few languages, the words
for "son" and "daughter" and for "boy" and "girl" mean really "little
man," and "little woman"--a survival of which thought meets us in the
"little man" with which his elders are even now wont to denominate "the
small boy." In the Nahuatl language of Mexico, "woman" is _ciuatl_,
"girl" _ciuatontli_; in the Niskwalli, of the State of Washington,
"man" is _stobsh_, "boy" _stótomish_, "woman" _sláne_,
"girl" _cháchas_ (_i.e._ "small") _sláne_; in the Tacana,
of South. America, "man" is _dreja_, "boy" _drejave_, "woman"
_epuna_, "girl" _epunave_. And but too often the "boys" and
"girls" even as mere children are "little men and women" in more
respects than that of name.
In some languages the words for "son," "boy," "girl" are from the same
root. Thus, in the Mazatec language, of Mexico, we find _indidi_
"boy," _tzadi_ "girl," _indi_ "son," and in the Cholona, of
Peru, _nun-pullup_ "boy," _ila-pullup_ "girl," _pul_
"son,"--where _ila_ means "female," and _nun_ "male."
In some others, as was the case with the Latin _puella_, from
_puer_, the word for "girl" seems derived from that for "boy."
Thus, we have in Maya, _mehen_ "son," _ix-mehen_ "daughter,"--
_-ix_ is a feminine prefix; and in the Jívaro, of Ecuador,
_vila_ "son," _vilalu_, "daughter."
Among very many primitive peoples, the words for "babe, infant, child,"
signify really "small," "little one," like the Latin _parvus_, the
Scotch _wean_ (for _wee ane_, "wee one"), etc. In Hawaiian,
for example, the "child" is called _keiki_, "the little one," and
in certain Indian languages of the Western Pacific slope, the Wiyot
_kusha'ma_ "child," Yuke _únsil_ "infant," Wintun
_cru-tut_ "infant," Niskwalli _chá chesh_ "child (boy)," all
signify literally "small," "little one."
Some languages, again, have diminutives of the word for "child," often
formed by reduplication, like the _wee wean_ of Lowland Scotch, and
the _pilpil_, "infant" of the Nahuatl of Mexico.
In the Snanaimuq language, of Vancouver Island, the words
_k·ä'ela_, "male infant," and _k·ä'k·ela_, "female infant,"
mean simply "the weak one." In the Modoc, of Oregon, a "baby" is
literally, "what is carried on one's self." In the Tsimshian, of British
Columbia, the word _wok·â'ûts_, "female infant," signifies really
"without labrets," indicating that the creature is yet too young for the
lip ornaments. In Latin, _liberi_, one of the words for "children,"
shows on its face that it meant only "children, as opposed to the slaves
of the house, _servi_"; for _liberi_ really denotes "the free
ones." In "the Galibi language of Brazil, _tigami_ signifies 'young
brother, son, and little child,' indiscriminately." The following
passage from Westermarck recalls the "my son," etc., of our higher
conversational or even officious style (166.93):--
"Mr. George Bridgman states that, among the Mackay blacks of Queensland,
the word for 'daughter' is used by a man for any young woman belonging
to the class to which his daughter would belong if he had one. And,
speaking of the Australians, Eyre says, 'In their intercourse with each
other, natives of different tribes are exceedingly punctilious and
polite; ... almost everything that is said is prefaced by the
appellation of father, son, brother, mother, sister, or some other
similar term, corresponding to that degree of relationship which would
have been most in accordance with their relative ages and
circumstances."
Similar phenomena meet us in the language of the criminal classes, and
the slang of the wilder youth of the country.
Among the Andaman Islanders: "Parents, when addressing or referring to
their children, and not using names, employ distinct terms, the father
calling his son _dar ô-dire,_ i.e. 'he that has been begotten by
me,' and his daughter, _dar ô-dire-pail-;_ while the mother makes
use of the word _dab ê-tire,_ i.e. 'he whom I have borne,' for the
former, and _dab ê-tire pail-_ for the latter; similarly, friends,
in speaking of children to their parents, say respectively, _ngar
ô-dire,_ or _ngab ê-tire_ (your son), _ngar ô-dire-pail-,_
or _ngab ê-tire-pail-_ (your daughter)" (498. 59).
In the Tonkawé Indian language of Texas, "to be born" is _nikaman
yekéwa,_ literally, "to become bones," and in the Klamath, of Oregon,
"to give birth," is _nkâcgî,_ from _nkák,_ "the top of the
head," and _gî,_ "to make," or perhaps from _kák'gî,_ "to
produce bones," from the idea that the seat of life is in the bones. In
the Nipissing dialect of the Algonkian tongue, _ni kanis,_ "my
brother," signifies literally, "my little bone," an etymology which, in
the light of the expressions cited above, reminds one of the Greek
[Greek: adelphos], and the familiar "bone of my bone," etc. A very
interesting word for "child" is Sanskrit _toka,_ Greek [Greek:
teknon], from the Indo-European radical _tek,_ "to prepare, make,
produce, generate." To the same root belong Latin _texere,_ "to
weave," Greek [Greek: technae] "art"; so that the child and art have
their names from the same primitive source--the mother was the former of
the child as she was of the chief arts of life.
_"Flower-Names."_
The people who seem to have gone farthest in the way of words for
"child" are the Andaman Islanders, who have an elaborate system of
nomenclature from the first year to the twelfth or fifteenth, when
childhood may be said to end. There are also in use a profusion of
"flower-names" and complimentary terms. The "flower-names" are confined
to girls and young women who are not mothers. The following list shows
the peculiarity of the name-giving:--
1. Proper name chosen before birth of child: ._dô'ra_.
2. If child turns out to be a boy, he is called: ._dô'ra-ô'ta_; if
a girl, ._dô'ra-kâ'ta_; these names (_ô'ta_ and _kâ'ta_
refer to the genital organs of the two sexes) are used during the first
two or three years only.
3. Until he reaches puberty, the boy is called: ._dô'ra dâ'la_, and
the girl, _.dô'ra-po'il'ola_.
4. When she reaches maturity, the girl is said to be _ún-lâ-wi_, or
_â'kà-lá-wi_, and receives a "flower-name" chosen from the one of
"the eighteen prescribed trees which blossom in succession" happening to
be in season when she attains womanhood.
5. If this should occur in the middle of August, when the _Pterocarpus
dalbergoides_, called _châ'langa_, is in flower,
"._dô'ra-po-ilola_ would become ._chà'garu dô'ra_, and this
double name would cling to the girl until she married and was a mother,
then the 'flower' name would give way to the more dignified term
_chän'a_ (madam or mother)._dô'ra_; if childless, a woman has
to pass a few years of married life before she is called _chän'a_,
after which no further change is made in her name."
Much other interesting information about name-giving may be found in the
pages of Mr. Man's excellent treatise on this primitive people (498.
59-61; 201-208).
_Sign Language._
Interesting details about signs and symbols for "child" may be found in
the elaborate article of Colonel Mallery on "Sign Language among North
American Indians" (497a), and the book of Mr. W. P. Clark on _Indian
Sign Language_ (420).
Colonel Mallery tells us that "the Egyptian hieroglyphists, notably in
the designation of Horus, their dawn-god, used the finger in or on the
lips for 'child.' It has been conjectured in the last instance that the
gesture implied, not the mode of taking nourishment, but inability to
speak, _in-fans_." This conjecture, however, the author rejects
(497a. 304). Among the Arapaho Indians "the sign for _child, baby_,
is the forefinger in the mouth, _i.e._ a nursing child, and a
natural sign of a deaf-mute is the same;" related seem also the ancient
Chinese forms for "son" and "birth," as well as the symbol for the
latter among the Dakota Indians (494 a. 356). Clark describes the symbol
for "child," which is based upon those for "parturition" and "height,"
thus: "Bring the right hand, back outwards, in front of centre of body,
and close to it, fingers extended, touching, pointing outwards and
downwards; move the hands on a curve downwards and outwards; then carry
the right hand, back outwards, well out to front and right of body,
fingers extended and pointing upwards, hand resting at supposed height
of child; the hand is swept into last position at the completion of
first gesture. In speaking of children generally, and, in fact, unless
it is desired to indicate height or age of the child, the first sign is
all that is used or is necessary. This sign also means the young of any
animal. In speaking of children generally, sometimes the signs for
different heights are only made. Deaf-mutes make the combined sign for
male and female, and then denote the height with right hand held
horizontally" (420. 109).
For "baby," deaf-mutes "hold extended left hand back down, in front of
body, forearm about horizontal and pointing to right and front; then lay
the back of partially compressed right hand on left forearm near wrist"
(420. 57).
_Names._
The interesting and extensive field of personal onomatology--the study
of personal names--cannot be entered upon exhaustively here. Shakespeare
has said:--
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet,"--
and the same remark might be made of the children of some primitive
peoples. Not infrequently the child is named before it is born. Of the
Central Eskimo we read that often before the birth of the child, "some
relative or friend lays his hand upon the mother's stomach, and decides
what the infant is to be called; and, as the name serves for either sex,
it is of no consequence whether it be a girl or a boy" (402. 612, 590).
Polle has a good deal to say of the deep significance of the name with
certain peoples--"to be" and "to be named" appearing sometimes as
synonymous (517. 99). "Hallowed be Thy name" expresses the ideas of many
generations of men. With the giving of a name the soul and being of a
former bearer of it were supposed to enter into and possess the child or
youth upon whom it was conferred. Kink says of the Eskimo of East
Greenland, that "they seemed to consider man as consisting of three
independent parts,--soul, body, name" (517. 122). One can easily
understand the mysterious associations of the name, the taboos of its
utterance or pronunciation so common among primitive peoples--the
reluctance to speak the name of a dead person, as well as the desire to
confer the name of such a one upon a new-born child, spring both from
the same source.
The folk-lore and ceremonial of name-giving are discussed at length in
Ploss, and the special treatises on popular customs. In several parts of
Germany, it is held to be ominous for misfortune or harm to the child,
if the name chosen for it should be made known before baptism.
Sometimes, the child is hardly recognized as existing until he has been
given a name. In Gerbstadt in Mansfeld, Germany, the child before it
receives its name is known as "dovedung," and, curiously enough, in
far-off Samoa, the corresponding appellation is "excrement of the
family-god" (517.103).
The following statement, regarding one of the American Indian tribes,
will stand for many other primitive peoples: "The proper names of the
Dakotas are words, simple and compounded, which are in common use in the
language. They are usually given to children by the father, grandfather,
or some other influential relative. When young men have distinguished
themselves in battle, they frequently take to themselves new names, as
the names of distinguished ancestors of warriors now dead. The son of a
chief when he comes to the chieftainship, generally takes the name of
his father or grandfather, so that the same names, as in other more
powerful dynasties, are handed down along the royal lines" (524. 44-45).
Of the same people we are also told: "The Dakotas have no family or
surnames. But the children of a family have particular names which
belong to them, in the order of their birth up to the fifth child. These
names are for boys, Caske, Hepan, Hepi, Catan, and Hake. For girls they
are, Windna, Hapan, Hapistinna, Wanske, and Wihake."
_Terms applied to Children._
An interesting study might be made of the words we apply to children in
respect of size, _little, small, wee, tiny,_ etc., very many of
which, in their etymology, have no reference to childhood, or indeed to
smallness. The derivation of little is uncertain, but the word is
reasonably thought to have meant "little" in the sense of "deceitful,
mean," from the radical _lut_, "to stoop" (hence "to creep, to
sneak"). Curiously enough, the German _klein_ has lost its original
meaning,--partly seen in our clean,--"bright, clear." _Small_ also
belongs in the same category, as the German _schmal_, "narrow,
slim," indicates, though perhaps the original signification may have
been "small" as we now understand it; a cognate word is the Latin
_macer_, "thin, lean," which has lost an s at the beginning. Even
wee, as the phrase "a little wee bit" hints, is thought (by Skeat) to be
nothing more than a Scandinavian form of the same word which appears in
our English _way_. Skeat also tells us that "a little teeny boy,"
meant at first "a little fractious (peevish) boy," being derived from an
old word _teen_, "anger, peevishness." Analogous to _tiny_ is
_pettish_, which is derived from _pet_, "mama's pet," "a
spoiled child." Endless would the list of words of this class be, if we
had at our disposal the projected English dialect dictionary; many other
illustrations might be drawn from the numerous German dialect
dictionaries and the great Swiss lexicon of Tobler.
Still more interesting, perhaps, would be the discussion of the special
words used to denote the actions and movements of children of all ages,
and the names and appellatives of the child derived from considerations
of age, constitution, habits, actions, speech, etc., which are
especially numerous in Low German dialects and such forms of English
speech as the Lowland Scotch. Worthy of careful attention are the
synonyms of child, the comparisons in which the child figures in the
speech of civilized and uncivilized man; the slang terms also, which,
like the common expression of to-day, _kid_, often go back to a
very primitive state of mind, when "children" and "kids" were really
looked upon as being more akin than now. Beside the terms of contempt
and sarcasm,--_goose_, _loon_, _pig_, _calf_,
_donkey_, etc.,--those figures of speech which, the world over,
express the sentiment of the writer of the _Wisdom of Solomon_
regarding the foolishness of babes,--we, like the ancient Mexicans and
many another lower race, have terms of praise and endearment,--"a jewel
of a babe," and the like,--legions of caressives and diminutives in the
use of which some of the Low German dialects are more lavish even than
Lowland Scotch.
In Grimm's great _Deutsches Wörterbuch_, the synonymy of the word
_Kind_ and its semasiology are treated at great length, with a
multitude of examples and explanations, useful to students of English,
whose dictionaries lag behind in these respects. The child in language
is a fertile subject for the linguist and the psychologist, and the
field is as yet almost entirely unexplored.