CHAPTER V. 



LANGUAGE, 



EtvmologICALLY the word Language means sign-making by 

 means of the tongue, i.e. articulate speech. But in a wider 

 sense the word is habitually used to designate sign-making in 

 general, as when we speak of the " finger-language " of the 

 deaf-and-dumb, the " language of flowers," &c. Or, as Pro- 

 fessor Broca says, " there are several kinds of language ; every 

 system of signs which gives expression to ideas in a manner 

 more or less intelligible, more or less perfect, or more or less 

 rapid, is a language in the general sense of the word. Thus 

 speech, gesture, dactylology, writing both hieroglyphic and 

 phonetic, are all so many kinds of language. There is, then, 

 a general faculty of language which presides over all these 

 modes of expression, and which may be defined — the faculty 

 of establishing a constant relation between an idea and a sign, 

 be this a sound, a gesture, a figure, or a drawing of any kind." 



The best classification of the sundry exhibitions of sign- 

 making faculty which I have met with, is one that is given by 

 Mr. Mivart in his Lessons from Nature (p. 83). This classifi- 

 cation, therefore, I will render in his own words. 



"We may altogether distinguish si.x different kinds of 

 language : — 



" I. Sounds which arc neither articulate nor rational, such 

 as cries of pain, or the murmur of a mother to her infant. 



*' 2. Sounds which are articulate but not rational, such as 

 the talk of parrots, or of certain idiots, who will repeat, with- 

 out comprehending, every phrase they hear. 



