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
mediaeval ignorance.
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 antennae. 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
expressions. 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 expressions 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 abbe de l'Epee, followed by the abbe 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 Mueller, 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.
_GESTURES OF THE BLIND._
The facial expressions and gestures of the congenitally blind are
worthy of attention. The most interesting and conclusive examples
come from the case of Laura Bridgman, who, being also deaf, could not
possibly have derived them by imitation. When a letter from a beloved
friend was communicated to her by gesture-language, she laughed
and clapped her hands. A roguish expression was given to her face,
concomitant with the emotion, by her holding the lower lip by the
teeth. She blushed, shrugged her shoulders, turned in her elbows, and
raised her eye-brows under the same circumstances as other people.
In amazement, she rounded and protruded the lips, opened them, and
breathed strongly. It is remarkable that she constantly accompanied
her "yes" with the common affirmative nod, and her "no" with our
negative shake of the head, as these gestures are by no means
universal and do not seem clearly connected with emotion. This,
possibly, may be explained by the fact that her ancestors for many
generations had used these gestures. A similar curious instance is
mentioned by Cardinal Wiseman (_Essays_, III, 547, _London_, 1853) of
an Italian blind man, the appearance of whose eyes indicated that he
had never enjoyed sight, and who yet made the same elaborate gestures
made by the people with whom he lived, but which had been used by them
immemorially, as correctly as if he had learned them by observation.
_LOSS OF SPEECH BY ISOLATION._
When human beings have been long in solitary confinement, been
abandoned, or otherwise have become isolated from their fellows, they
have lost speech either partially or entirely, and required to have
it renewed through gestures. There are also several recorded cases of
children, born with all their faculties, who, after having been lost
or abandoned, have been afterwards found to have grown up possessed
of acute hearing, but without anything like human speech. One of these
was Peter, "the Wild Boy," who was found in the woods of Hanover in
1726, and taken to England, where vain attempts were made to teach him
language, though he lived to the age of seventy. Another was a boy of
twelve, found in the forest of Aveyron, in France, about the beginning
of this century, who was destitute of speech, and all efforts to teach
him failed. Some of these cases are to be considered in connection
with the general law of evolution, that in degeneration the last
and highest acquirements are lost first. When in these the effort
at acquiring or re-acquiring speech has been successful, it has been
through gestures, in the same manner as missionaries, explorers,
and shipwrecked mariners have become acquainted with tongues before
unknown to themselves and sometimes to civilization. All persons in
such circumstances are obliged to proceed by pointing to objects and
making gesticulations, at the same time observing what articulate
sounds were associated with those motions by the persons addressed,
and thus vocabularies and lists of phrases were formed.
_LOW TRIBES OF MAN._
Apart from the establishment of a systematic language of signs under
special circumstances which have occasioned its development, the
gestures of the lower tribes of men may be generally classed under the
emotional or instinctive division, which can be correlated with those
of the lower animals. This may be illustrated by the modes adopted to
show friendship in salutation, taking the place of our shaking hands.
Some Pacific Islanders used to show their joy at meeting friends by
sniffing at them, after the style of well-disposed dogs. The Fuegians
pat and slap each other, and some Polynesians stroke their own faces
with the hand or foot of the friend. The practice of rubbing or
pressing noses is very common. It has been noticed in the Lapland
Alps, often in Africa, and in Australia the tips of the noses are
pressed a long time, accompanied with grunts of satisfaction. Patting
and stroking different parts of the body are still more frequent, and
prevailed among the North American Indians, though with the latter
the most common expression was hugging. In general, the civilities
exchanged are similar to those of many animals.
_GESTURES AS AN OCCASIONAL RESOURCE._
Persons of limited vocabulary, whether foreigners to the tongue
employed or native, but not accomplished in its use, even in the midst
of a civilization where gestures are deprecated, when at fault for
words resort instinctively to physical motions that are not wild nor
meaningless, but picturesque and significant, though perhaps made
by the gesturer for the first time. An uneducated laborer, if
good-natured enough to be really desirous of responding to a request
for information, when he has exhausted his scanty stock of words will
eke them out by original gestures. While fully admitting the advice to
Coriolanus--
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant
More learned than the ears--
it may be paraphrased to read that the hands of the ignorant are
more learned than their tongues. A stammerer, too, works his arms and
features as if determined to get his thoughts out, in a manner not
only suggestive of the physical struggle, but of the use of gestures
as a hereditary expedient.
_GESTURES OF FLUENT TALKERS._
The same is true of the most fluent talkers on occasions when the
exact vocal formula desired does not at once suggest itself, or is
unsatisfactory without assistance from the physical machinery not
embraced in the oral apparatus. The command of a copious vocabulary
common to both speaker and hearer undoubtedly tends to a phlegmatic
delivery and disdain of subsidiary aid. An excited speaker will,
however, generally make a free use of his hands without regard to
any effect of that use upon auditors. Even among the gesture-hating
English, when they are aroused from torpidity of manner, the hands are
involuntarily clapped in approbation, rubbed with delight, wrung in
distress, raised in astonishment, and waved in triumph. The fingers
are snapped for contempt, the forefinger is vibrated to reprove or
threaten, and the fist shaken in defiance. The brow is contracted with
displeasure, and the eyes winked to show connivance. The shoulders
are shrugged to express disbelief or repugnance, the eyebrows
elevated with surprise, the lips bitten in vexation and thrust out in
sullenness or displeasure, while a higher degree of anger is shown
by a stamp of the foot. Quintilian, regarding the subject, however,
not as involuntary exhibition of feeling and intellect, but for
illustration and enforcement, becomes eloquent on the variety of
motions of which the hands alone are capable, as follows:
"The action of the other parts of the body assists the speaker, but
the hands (I could almost say) speak themselves. By them do we
not demand, promise, call, dismiss, threaten, supplicate, express
abhorrence and terror, question and deny? Do we not by them express
joy and sorrow, doubt, confession, repentance, measure, quantity,
number, and time? Do they not also encourage, supplicate, restrain,
convict, admire, respect? and in pointing out places and persons do
they not discharge the office of adverbs and of pronouns?"
Voss adopts almost the words of Quintilian, "_Manus non modo loquentem
adjuvant, sed ipsae pene loqui videntur_," while Cresollius calls the
hand "the minister of reason and wisdom ... without it there is no
eloquence."
_INVOLUNTARY RESPONSE TO GESTURES._
Further evidence of the unconscious survival of gesture language is
afforded by the ready and involuntary response made in signs to signs
when a man with the speech and habits of civilization is brought into
close contact with Indians or deaf-mutes. Without having ever before
seen or made one of their signs, he will soon not only catch the
meaning of theirs, but produce his own, which they will likewise
comprehend, the power seemingly remaining latent in him until called
forth by necessity.
_NATURAL PANTOMIME._
In the earliest part of man's history the subjects of his discourse
must have been almost wholly sensuous, and therefore readily expressed
in pantomime. Not only was pantomime sufficient for all the actual
needs of his existence, but it is not easy to imagine how he could
have used language such as is now known to us. If the best English
dictionary and grammar had been miraculously furnished to him,
together with the art of reading with proper pronunciation, the gift
would have been valueless, because the ideas expressed by the words
had not yet been formed.
That the early concepts were of a direct and material character is
shown by what has been ascertained of the roots of language, and there
does not appear to be much difficulty in expressing by other than
vocal instrumentality all that could have been expressed by those
roots. Even now, with our vastly increased belongings of external
life, avocations, and habits, nearly all that is absolutely necessary
for our physical needs can be expressed in pantomime. Far beyond the
mere signs for eating, drinking, sleeping, and the like, any one will
understand a skillful representation in signs of a tailor, shoemaker,
blacksmith, weaver, sailor, farmer, or doctor. So of washing,
dressing, shaving, walking, driving, writing, reading, churning,
milking, boiling, roasting or frying, making bread or preparing
coffee, shooting, fishing, rowing, sailing, sawing, planing, boring,
and, in short, an endless list.
Max Mueller properly calls touch, scent, and taste the palaioteric,
and sight and hearing the neoteric senses, the latter of which
often require to be verified by the former. Touch is the lowest in
specialization and development, and is considered to be the oldest of
the senses, the others indeed being held by some writers to be only
its modifications. Scent, of essential importance to many animals, has
with man almost ceased to be of any, except in connection with taste,
which he has developed to a high degree. Whether or not sight preceded
hearing in order of development, it is difficult, in conjecturing the
first attempts of man or his hypothetical ancestor at the expression
either of percepts or concepts, to connect vocal sounds with any
large number of objects, but it is readily conceivable that the
characteristics of their forms and movements should have been
suggested to the eye--fully exercised before the tongue--so soon
as the arms and fingers became free for the requisite simulation
or portrayal. There is little distinction between pantomime and a
developed sign language, in which thought is transmitted rapidly and
certainly from hand to eye as it is in oral speech from lips to
ear; the former is, however, the parent of the latter, which is more
abbreviated and less obvious. Pantomime acts movements, reproduces
forms and positions, presents pictures, and manifests emotions with
greater realization than any other mode of utterance. It may readily
be supposed that a troglodyte man would desire to communicate the
finding of a cave in the vicinity of a pure pool, circled with soft
grass, and shaded by trees bearing edible fruit. No sound of nature is
connected with any of those objects, but the position and size of the
cave, its distance and direction, the water, its quality, and amount,
the verdant circling carpet, and the kind and height of the trees
could have been made known by pantomime in the days of the mammoth,
if articulate speech had not then been established, as Indians or
deaf-mutes now communicate similar information by the same agency.
The proof of this fact, as regards deaf-mutes, will hardly be
demanded, as their expressive pantomime has been so often witnessed.
That of the North American Indians, as distinct from the signs which
are generally its abbreviations, has been frequently described in
general terms, but it may be interesting to present two instances from
remote localities.
A Maricopa Indian, in the present limits of Arizona, was offered an
advantageous trade for his horse, whereupon he stretched himself on
his horse's neck, caressed it tenderly, at the same time shutting his
eyes, meaning thereby that no offer could tempt him to part with his
charger.
An A-tco-ma-wi or Pit River Indian, in Northeastern California, to
explain the cause of his cheeks and forehead being covered with tar,
represented a man falling, and, despite his efforts to save him,
trembling, growing pale (pointing from his face to that of a white
man), and sinking to sleep, his spirit winging its way to the skies,
which he indicated by imitating with his hands the flight of a bird
upwards, his body sleeping still upon the river bank, to which he
pointed. The tar upon his face was thus shown to be his dress of
mourning for a friend who had fallen and died.
Several descriptions of pure pantomime, intermixed with the more
conventionalized signs, will be found in the present paper. In
especial, reference is made to the Address of Kin Ch[=e]-[)e]ss,
Natci's Narrative, the Dialogue between Alaskan Indians, and
Na-wa-gi-jig's Story.