The nearest approach to a general rule which it is now proposed to
hazard is that where people speaking precisely the same dialect are
not numerous, and are thrown into constant contact on equal terms with
others of differing dialects and languages, gesture is necessarily
resorted to for converse with the latter, and remains for an
indefinite time as a habit or accomplishment among themselves,
while large bodies enjoying common speech, and either isolated from
foreigners, or, when in contact with them, so dominant as to compel
the learning and adoption of their own tongue, become impassive in its
delivery. The ungesturing English, long insular, and now rulers
when spread over continents, may be compared with the profusely
gesticulating Italians dwelling in a maze of dialects and subject for
centuries either to foreign rule or to the influx of strangers on whom
they depended. So common is the use of gestures in Italy, especially
among the lower and uneducated classes, that utterance without them
seems to be nearly impossible. The driver or boatman will often,
on being addressed, involuntarily drop the reins or oars, at the
risk of a serious accident, to respond with his arms and fingers
in accompaniment of his tongue. Nor is the habit confined to the
uneducated. King Ferdinand returning to Naples after the revolt of
1821, and finding that the boisterous multitude would not allow his
voice to be heard, resorted successfully to a royal address in signs,
giving reproaches, threats, admonitions, pardon, and dismissal, to
the entire satisfaction of the assembled lazzaroni. The medium, though
probably not the precise manner of its employment, recalls Lucan's
account of the quieting of an older tumult--
tumultum
Composuit vultu, dextraque silentia fecit.
This rivalry of Punch would, in London, have occasioned measureless
ridicule and disgust. The difference in what is vaguely styled
temperament does not wholly explain the contrast between the two
peoples, for the performance was creditable both to the readiness of
the King in an emergency and to the aptness of his people, the main
distinction being that in Italy there was in 1821, and still is, a
recognized and cultivated language of signs long disused in Great
Britain. In seeking to account for this it will be remembered that the
Italians have a more direct descent from the people who, as has been
above shown, in classic times so long and lovingly cultivated gesture
as a system. They have also had more generally before their eyes the
artistic relics in which gestures have been preserved.
It is a curious fact that some English writers, notably Addison
(_Spectator_, 407), have contended that it does not suit the genius
of that nation to use gestures even in public speaking, against which
doctrine Austin vigorously remonstrates. He says: "There may possibly
be nations whose livelier feelings incline them more to gesticulation
than is common among us, as there are also countries in which plants
of excellent use to man grow spontaneously; these, by care and
culture, are found to thrive also in colder countries."
It is in general to be remarked that as the number of dialects in any
district decreases so will the gestures, though doubtless there is
also weight in the fact not merely that a language has been reduced to
and modified by writing, but that people who are accustomed generally
to read and write, as are the English and Germans, will after a time
think and talk as they write, and without the accompaniments still
persistent among Hindus, Arabs, and the less literate of European
nations.
The fact that in the comparatively small island of Sicily gesture
language has been maintained until the present time in a perfection
not observed elsewhere in Europe must be considered in connection with
the above remark on England's insularity, and it must also be admitted
that several languages have prevailed in the latter, still leaving
dialects. This apparent similarity of conditions renders the contrast
as regards use of gestures more remarkable, yet there are some reasons
for their persistence in Sicily which apply with greater force than
to Great Britain. The explanation, through mere tradition, is that the
common usage of signs dates from the time of Dionysius, the tyrant of
Syracuse, who prohibited meetings and conversation among his subjects,
under the direst penalties, so that they adopted that expedient to
hold communication. It would be more useful to consider the peculiar
history of the island. The Sicanians being its aborigines it was
colonized by Greeks, who, as the Romans asserted, were still more apt
at gesture than themselves. This colonization was also by separate
bands of adventurers from several different states of Greece, so that
they started with dialects and did not unite in a common or national
organization, the separate cities and their territories being governed
by oligarchies or tyrants frequently at war with each other, until,
in the fifth century B.C., the Carthaginians began to contribute a new
admixture of language and blood, followed by Roman, Vandal, Gothic,
Herulian, Arab, and Norman subjugation. Thus some of the conditions
above suggested have existed in this case, but, whatever the
explanation, the accounts given by travelers of the extent to which
the language of signs has been used even during the present generation
are so marvelous as to deserve quotation. The one selected is from
the pen of Alexandre Dumas, who, it is to be hoped, did not carry his
genius for romance into a professedly sober account of travel:
"In the intervals of the acts of the opera I saw lively conversations
carried on between the orchestra and the boxes. Arami, in particular,
recognized a friend whom he had not seen for three years, and who
related to him, by means of his eyes and his hands, what, to judge by
the eager gestures of my companion, must have been matters of great
interest. The conversation ended, I asked him if I might know without
impropriety what was the intelligence which had seemed to interest
him so deeply. 'O, yes,' he replied, 'that person is one of my good
friends, who has been away from Palermo for three years, and he has
been telling me that he was married at Naples; then traveled with
his wife in Austria and in France; there his wife gave birth to a
daughter, whom he had the misfortune to lose; he arrived by steamboat
yesterday, but his wife had suffered so much from sea-sickness that
she kept her bed, and he came alone to the play.' 'My dear friend,'
said I to Arami, 'if you would have me believe you, you must grant
me a favor.' 'What is it?' said he. 'It is, that you do not leave me
during the evening, so that I may be sure you give no instructions to
your friend, and when we join him, that you ask him to repeat aloud
what he said to you by signs.' 'That I will,' said Arami. The curtain
then rose; the second act of Norma was played; the curtain falling,
and the actors being recalled, as usual, we went to the side-room,
where we met the traveler. 'My dear friend,' said Arami, 'I did not
perfectly comprehend what you wanted to tell me; be so good as to
repeat it.' The traveler repeated the story word for word, and without
varying a syllable from the translation, which Arami had made of his
signs; it was marvelous indeed.
"Six weeks after this, I saw a second example of this faculty of mute
communication. This was at Naples. I was walking with a young man
of Syracuse. We passed by a sentinel. The soldier and my companion
exchanged two or three grimaces, which at another time I should not
even have noticed, but the instances I had before seen led me to give
attention. 'Poor fellow,' sighed my companion. 'What did he say to
you?' I asked. 'Well,' said he, 'I thought that I recognized him as
a Sicilian, and I learned from him, as we passed, from what place he
came; he said he was from Syracuse, and that he knew me well. Then
I asked him how he liked the Neapolitan service; he said he did not
like it at all, and if his officers did not treat him better he should
certainly finish by deserting. I then signified to him that if he ever
should be reduced to that extremity, he might rely upon me, and that
I would aid him all in my power. The poor fellow thanked me with all
his heart, and I have no doubt that one day or other I shall see him
come.' Three days after, I was at the quarters of my Syracusan friend,
when he was told that a man asked to see him who would not give his
name; he went out and left me nearly ten minutes. 'Well,' said he,
on returning, 'just as I said.' 'What?' said I. 'That the poor fellow
would desert.'"
After this there is an excuse for believing the tradition that the
revolt called "the Sicilian Vespers," in 1282, was arranged throughout
the island without the use of a syllable, and even the day and hour
for the massacre of the obnoxious foreigners fixed upon by signs only.
Indeed, the popular story goes so far as to assert that all this was
done by facial expression, without even manual signs.