Signaling and Indian Signs 239 



give the Question sign, then make an incomplete ring of your 

 right forefinger and thumb, raise them in a sweep until 

 above your head, then bring the ring straight down to your 

 heart. This is the Indian way of asking, "Is the sun shin- 

 ing in your heart?" — that is, "Are you happy?" — your 

 answer will, I hope, be made by the right hand and arm 

 standing up straight, then bowing toward the left, followed 

 by a sharp stroke of the right fist knuckles past those of the 

 left fist without their touching, which means "Yes, the sun 

 shines in my heart heap strong." 



PICTURE-WRITING 



The written form of Sign Language is the picture-writing 

 also called Pictography, and Ideography, because it repre- 

 sents ideas and not words or letters. It is widely believed 

 that Sign Language is the oldest of all languages; that in- 

 deed it existed among animals before man appeared on earth. 

 It is universally accepted that the ideography is the oldest 

 of all writing. The Chinese writing for instance is merely 

 picture-writing done with as few lines as possible. 



Thus, their curious character for '^Hearing" was once 

 a complete picture of a person listening behind a screen, 

 but in time it was reduced by hasty hands to a few 

 scratches; and "War," now a few spider marks, was origi- 

 nally a sketch of "two women in one house." 



To come a Uttle nearer home, our alphabet is said to be 

 descended from hieroglyphic ideographs. 



"A" or "Ah," for example, was the sound of an ox repre- 

 sented jSirst by an outline of an ox, then of the head, which 

 in various modifications, through rapid writing, became 

 our "A." 



"O" was a face saying "Oh," now simplified into the 

 round shape of the mouth. 



