The general report that there is but one sign language in North
America, any deviation from which is either blunder, corruption, or a
dialect in the nature of provincialism, may be examined in reference
to some of the misconceived facts which gave it origin and credence.
It may not appear to be necessary that such examination should be
directed to any mode of collecting and comparing signs which would
amount to their distortion. It is useful, however, to explain that
distortion would result from following the views of a recent essayist,
who takes the ground that the description of signs should be made
according to a "mean" or average. There can be no philosophic
consideration of signs according to a "mean" of observations. The
proper object is to ascertain the radical or essential part as
distinct from any individual flourish or mannerism on the one hand,
and from a conventional or accidental abbreviation on the other; but
a mere average will not accomplish that object. If the hand, being
in any position whatever, is, according to five observations, moved
horizontally one foot to the right, and, according to five other
observations, moved one foot horizontally to the left, the "mean"
or resultant will be that it is stationary, which sign does not
correspond with any of the ten observations. So if six observations
give it a rapid motion of one foot to the right and five a rapid
motion of the same distance to the left, the mean or resultant would
be somewhat difficult to express, but perhaps would be a slow movement
to the right for an inch or two, having certainly no resemblance
either in essentials or accidents to any of the signs actually
observed. In like manner the tail of the written letter "_y_" (which,
regarding its mere formation, might be a graphic sign) may have in
the chirography of several persons various degrees of slope, may be
a straight line, or looped, and may be curved on either side; but a
"mean" taken from the several manuscripts would leave the unfortunate
letter without any tail whatever, or travestied as a "_u_" with an
amorphous flourish. A definition of the radical form of the letter or
sign by which it can be distinguished from any other letter or sign
is a very different proceeding. Therefore, if a "mean" or resultant of
any number of radically different signs to express the same object or
idea, observed either among several individuals of the same tribe or
among different tribes, is made to represent those signs, they are
all mutilated and ignored as distinctive signs, though the result may
possibly be made intelligible in practice, according to principles
mentioned in the present paper. The expedient of a "mean" may be
practically useful in the formation of a mere interpreter's jargon,
but it elucidates no principle. It is also convenient for any one
determined to argue for the uniformity of sign language as against the
variety in unity apparent in all the realms of nature. On the "mean"
principle, he only needs to take his two-foot rule and arithmetical
tables and make all signs his signs and his signs all signs. Of course
they are uniform, because he has made them so after the brutal example
of Procrustes.
In this connection it is proper to urge a warning that a mere sign
talker is often a bad authority upon principles and theories. He
may not be liable to the satirical compliment of Dickens's "brave
courier," who "understood all languages indifferently ill"; but many
men speak some one language fluently, and yet are wholly unable to
explain or analyze its words and forms so as to teach it to another
person, or even to give an intelligent summary or classification
of their own knowledge. What such a sign talker has learned is by
memorizing, as a child may learn English, and though both the sign
talker and the child may be able to give some separate items useful to
a philologist or foreigner, such items are spoiled when colored by the
attempt of ignorance to theorize. A German who has studied English
to thorough mastery, except in the mere facility of speech, may in
a discussion upon some of its principles be contradicted by any mere
English speaker, who insists upon his superior knowledge because he
actually speaks the language and his antagonist does not, but the
student will probably be correct and the talker wrong. It is an old
adage about oral speech that a man who understands but one language
understands none. The science of a sign talker possessed by a
restrictive theory is like that of Mirabeau, who was greater as an
orator than as a philologist, and who on a visit to England gravely
argued that there was something seriously wrong in the British mind
because the people would persist in saying "give me some bread"
instead of "_donnez-moi du pain_," which was so much easier and more
natural. A designedly ludicrous instance to the same effect was Hood's
arraignment of the French because they called their mothers "mares"
and their daughters "fillies." It is necessary to take with caution
any statement from a person who, having memorized or hashed up any
number of signs, large or small, has decided in his conceit that those
he uses are the only genuine Simon Pure, to be exclusively employed
according to his direction, all others being counterfeits or blunders.
His vocabulary has ceased to give the signs of any Indian or body of
Indians whatever, but becomes his own, the proprietorship of which he
fights for as if secured by letters-patent. When a sign is contributed
by one of the present collaborators, which such a sign talker has not
before seen or heard of, he will at once condemn it as bad, just as a
United States Minister to Vienna, who had been nursed in the mongrel
Dutch of Berks County, Pennsylvania, declared that the people of
Germany spoke very bad German.
An argument for the uniformity of the signs of our Indians is derived
from the fact that those used by any of them are generally understood
by others. But signs may be understood without being identical with
any before seen. The entribal as well as intertribal exercise of
Indians for generations in gesture language has naturally produced
great skill both in expression and reception, so as to render them
measurably independent of any prior mutual understanding, or what in
a system of signals is called preconcert. Two accomplished army
signalists can, after sufficient trial, communicate without having
any code in common between them, one being mutually devised, and those
specially designed for secrecy are often deciphered. So, if any one
of the more conventional signs is not quickly comprehended, an Indian
skilled in the principle of signs resorts to another expression of his
flexible art, perhaps reproducing the gesture unabbreviated and made
more graphic, perhaps presenting either the same or another conception
or quality of the same object or idea by an original portraiture.
An impression of the community of signs is the more readily made
because explorers and officials are naturally brought into contact
more closely with those individuals of the tribes visited who are
experts in sign language than with their other members, and those
experts, on account of their skill as interpreters, are selected as
guides to accompany the visitors. The latter also seek occasion to
be present when signs are used, whether with or without words, in
intertribal councils, and then the same class of experts comprises
the orators, for long exercise in gesture speech has made the Indian
politicians, with no special effort, masters of the art acquired by
our public speakers only after laborious apprenticeship. The whole
theory and practice of sign language being that all who understand its
principles can make themselves mutually intelligible, the fact of the
ready comprehension and response among all the skilled gesturers gives
the impression of a common code. Furthermore, if the explorer learn
to employ with ingenuity the signs used by any of the tribes, he will
probably be understood in any other by the same class of persons
who will surround him in the latter, thereby confirming him in the
"common" theory. Those of the tribe who are less skilled, but who are
not noticed, might be unable to catch the meaning of signs which have
not been actually taught to them, just as ignorant persons among us
cannot derive any sense from newly-coined words or those strange
to their habitual vocabulary, which, though never before heard,
linguistic scholars would instantly understand and might afterward
adopt.
It is also common experience that when Indians find that a sign which
has become conventional among their tribe is not understood by an
interlocutor, a self-expressive sign is substituted for it, from
which a visitor may form the impression that there are no conventional
signs. It may likewise occur that the self-expressive sign substituted
will be met with by a visitor in several localities, different
Indians, in their ingenuity, taking the best and the same means of
reaching the exotic intelligence.
There is some evidence that where sign language is now found among
Indian tribes it has become more uniform than ever before, simply
because many tribes have for some time past been forced to dwell near
together at peace. A collection was obtained in the spring of 1880, at
Washington, from a united delegation of the Kaiowa, Comanche, Apache,
and Wichita tribes, which was nearly uniform, but the individuals who
gave the signs had actually lived together at or near Anadarko, Indian
Territory, for a considerable time, and the resulting uniformity of
their signs might either be considered as a jargon or as the natural
tendency to a compromise for mutual understanding--the unification so
often observed in oral speech, coming under many circumstances out of
former heterogeneity. The rule is that dialects precede languages and
that out of many dialects comes one language. It may be found that
other individuals of those same tribes who have from any cause
not lived in the union explained may have signs for the same ideas
different from those in the collection above mentioned. This is
probable, because some signs of other representatives of one of the
component bodies--Apache--have actually been reported differing from
those for the same ideas given by the Anadarko group. The uniformity
of the signs of those Arapahos, Cheyennes, and Sioux who have been
secluded for years at one particular reservation, so far as could be
done by governmental power, from the outer world, was used in argument
by a correspondent; but some collected signs of other Cheyennes and
Sioux differ, not only from those on the reservation, but among
each other. Therefore the signs used in common by the tribes at
the reservation seem to have been modified and to a certain extent
unified.
The result of the collation and analysis of the large number of signs
collected is that in numerous instances there is an entire discrepancy
between the signs made by different bodies of Indians to express
the same idea, and that if any of these are regarded as rigidly
determinate, or even conventional with a limited range, and used
without further devices, they will fail in conveying the desired
impression to any one unskilled in gesture as an art, who had not
formed the same precise conception or been instructed in the arbitrary
motion. Few of the gestures that are found in current use are, in
their origin, conventional. They are only portions, more or less
elaborate, of obvious natural pantomime, and those proving efficient
to convey most successfully at any time the several ideas became
the most widely adopted, liable, however, to be superseded by more
appropriate conceptions and delineations. The skill of any tribe and
the copiousness of its signs are proportioned first to the necessity
for their use, and secondly to the accidental ability of the
individuals in it who act as custodians and teachers, so that the
several tribes at different times vary in their degree of proficiency,
and therefore both the precise mode of semiotic expression and the
amount of its general use are always fluctuating. Sign language as a
product of evolution has been developed rather than invented, and yet
it seems probable that each of the separate signs, like the several
steps that lead to any true invention, had a definite origin arising
out of some appropriate occasion, and the same sign may in this
manner have had many independent origins due to identity in the
circumstances, or if lost, may have been reproduced.
The process is precisely the same as that observed among deaf-mutes.
One of those unfortunate persons, living with his speaking relatives,
may invent signs which the latter are taught to understand, though
strangers sometimes will not, because they may be by no means the
fittest expressions. Should a dozen or more deaf-mutes, possessed
only of such crude signs, come together, they will be able at first to
communicate only on a few common subjects, but the number of those and
the general scope of expression will be continually enlarged. Each one
commences with his own conception and his own presentment of it,
but the universality of the medium used makes it sooner or later
understood. This independent development, thus creating diversity,
often renders the first interchange of thought between strangers
slow, for the signs must be self-interpreting. There can be no natural
universal language which is absolute and arbitrary. When used without
convention, as sign language alone of all modes of utterance can be,
it must be tentative, experimental, and flexible. The mutes will also
resort to the invention of new signs for new ideas as they
arise, which will be made intelligible, if necessary, through the
illustration and definition given by signs formerly adopted, so that
the fittest signs will be evolved, after rivalry and trial, and will
survive. But there may not always be such a preponderance of fitness
that all but one of the rival signs shall die out, and some, being
equal in value to express the same idea or object, will continue to
be used indifferently, or as a matter of individual taste, without
confusion. A multiplication of the numbers confined together, either
of deaf-mutes or of Indians whose speech is diverse, will not decrease
the resulting uniformity, though it will increase both the copiousness
and the precision of the vocabulary. The Indian use of signs, though
maintained by linguistic diversities, is not coincident with any
linguistic boundaries. The tendency is to their uniformity among
groups of people who from any cause are brought into contact with each
other while still speaking different languages. The longer and closer
such contact, while no common tongue is adopted, the greater will be
the uniformity of signs.
Colonel Dodge takes a middle ground with regard to the identity of
the signs used by our Indians, comparing it with the dialects and
provincialisms of the English language, as spoken in England, Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales. But those dialects are the remains of actually
diverse languages, which to some speakers have not become integrated.
In England alone the provincial dialects are traceable as the legacies
of Saxons, Angles, Jutes, and Danes, with a varying amount of Norman
influence. A thorough scholar in the composite tongue, now
called English, will be able to understand all the dialects and
provincialisms of English in the British Isles, but the uneducated
man of Yorkshire is not able to communicate readily with the equally
uneducated man of Somersetshire. This is the true distinction to
be made. A thorough sign talker would be able to talk with several
Indians who have no signs in common, and who, if their knowledge of
signs were only memorized, could not communicate together. So also, as
an educated Englishman will understand the attempts of a foreigner to
speak in very imperfect and broken English, a good Indian sign expert
will apprehend the feeble efforts of a tyro in gestures. But Colonel
Dodge's conclusion that there is but one true Indian sign language,
just as there is but one true English language, is not proved unless
it can be shown that a much larger proportion of the Indians who
use signs at all, than present researches show to be the case, use
identically the same signs to express the same ideas. It would also
seem necessary to the parallel that the signs so used should be
absolute, if not arbitrary, as are the words of an oral language, and
not independent of preconcert and self-interpreting at the instant of
their invention or first exhibition, as all true signs must originally
have been and still measurably remain. All Indians, as all gesturing
men, have many natural signs in common and many others which are now
conventional. The conventions by which the latter were established
occurred during long periods, when the tribes forming them were
so separated as to have established altogether diverse customs and
mythologies, and when the several tribes were with such different
environment as to have formed varying conceptions needing appropriate
sign expression. The old error that the North American Indians
constitute one homogeneous race is now abandoned. Nearly all the
characteristics once alleged as segregating them from the rest of
mankind have proved not to belong to the whole of the pre-Columbian
population, but only to those portions of it first explored. The
practice of scalping is not now universal, even among the tribes
least influenced by civilization, if it ever was, and therefore the
cultivation of the scalp-lock separated from the rest of the hair
of the head, or with the removal of all other hair, is not a general
feature of their appearance. The arrangement of the hair is so
different among tribes as to be one of the most convenient modes for
their pictorial distinction. The war paint, red in some tribes, was
black in others; the mystic rites of the calumet were in many regions
unknown, and the use of wampum was by no means extensive. The wigwam
is not the type of native dwellings, which show as many differing
forms as those of Europe. In color there is great variety, and even
admitting that the term "race" is properly applied, no competent
observer would characterize it as red, still less copper-colored. Some
tribes differ from each other in all respects nearly as much as either
of them do from the lazzaroni of Naples, and more than either do
from certain tribes of Australia. It would therefore be expected,
as appears to be the case, that the conventional signs of different
stocks and regions differ as do the words of English, French, and
German, which, nevertheless, have sprung from the same linguistic
roots. No one of those languages is a dialect of any of the others;
and although the sign systems of the several tribes have greater
generic unity with less specific variety than oral languages, no one
of them is necessarily the dialect of any other.
Instead, therefore, of admitting, with present knowledge, that the
signs of our Indians are "identical" and "universal," it is the more
accurate statement that the systematic attempt to convey meaning by
signs is universal among the Indians of the Plains, and those still
comparatively unchanged by civilization. Its successful execution is
by an _art_, which, however it may have commenced as an instinctive
mental process, has been cultivated, and consists in actually pointing
out objects in sight not only for designation, but for application and
predication, and in suggesting others to the mind by action and the
airy forms produced by action. To insist that sign language is uniform
were to assert that it is perfect--"That faultless monster that the
world ne'er saw."