THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE 209 



bridged by signs, and many of their words belong 

 more to the category of signs than to that of 

 words. 



The final witness is the first attempt at Lan- 

 guage of a little child. Universally an infant opens 

 communication with the mental world around it in 

 the primitive language of gesture and tone. Long 

 before it has learned to speak, without the use 

 of a single word it conveys information as to 

 fundamental wants, and expresses all its varying 

 moods and wishes with a vehemence and point 

 which are almost the envy of riper years. The 

 interesting thing about this is that it is spon- 

 taneous. In later childhood it has to be taught 

 to speak — because speech is a fine art — but to 

 utter the hereditary and primitive Language of 

 mankind requires no prompting. Words are con- 

 ventional, movements and sounds are natural. The 

 Language of the nursery is the native Language 

 of the forest, the inarticulate cry of the animal, 

 the intonation of the savage. To quote from 

 Mallery : — " 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 intelli- 

 gent long in advance of speech ; although very 

 early and persistent attempts are made to give 



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